AS DOCTORS and nurses man the NHS frontline over the festive period, behind the scenes a small unseen team are working just as hard to keep our hospitals running.

The Oxford University Hospitals estates and facilities team have been working tirelessly over Christmas gritting pathways and car parks, maintaining heating systems, cooking meals and transporting patients among a host of other vital tasks.

Over the year the award-winning estates team dealt with 29,113 helpdesk calls, 14.6 million pieces of laundry, and maintained 73.8 hectares of land.

And it has been business as usual over Christmas.

Marilyn Summers, who has worked as a porter at the Horton General Hospital in Banbury for 10 years said: "I do quite enjoy working over Christmas.

"My job I go all over the hospital and last Christmas Day it was marvellous because everywhere you went people were wishing you a Merry Christmas and the morale was really good.

"It just makes your whole day when the atmosphere is like that at Christmas."

As well as the day-to-day maintenance of all of OUH's hospital sites, the estates and facilities team processed 2208 tonnes of recycling last year which meant that no waste went to landfill and the Trust saved approximately 591,229kg of CO₂ and 2502 trees.

All of this led to the dedicated porters, technicians, cleaners and cooks of the OUH team being named team of the year at the 2018 Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management (IHEEM) in October, while just this month, their hard work was again recognised when they were given the Patients' Choice Award at the OUH Staff Recognition Awards.

Mrs Summers added: "We are basically unseen when you look at the bigger picture but I do think the public and patients are aware of what we do, but I'm not sure they realise we have to work over Christmas but it’s just part of the job."

Estates technician John Quinn was on call over Christmas Day ready to fix any electrical or mechanical problems at the Horton General.

From freeing people trapped in lifts to fixing leaks and power cuts, Mr Quinn is a vital cog in the NHS machine providing care and treatment to patients 365 days a year.

Mr Quinn, who has worked at the hospital for 15 years, said he was proud to play a part in helping the hospital continue to care for the public.

We’re all part of the team, if any part of that chain is broken it can be detrimental, and it’s all for the patients in the end; the housekeepers, the porters, we all have to do our part.

"If it wasn’t for catering no-one would get anything to eat, if it wasn’t for the porters patients wouldn’t go to x-ray or the theatres and the housekeepers - every where’s got to be kept clean and hygienic."