WORCESTER Cathedral was packed to the rafters on Sunday for a special celebration of NHS staff and volunteers.

The Service of Celebration on September 28 was organised to say thank you to the doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, and everyone else working tirelessly in the NHS in Worcestershire.

The service was preceded by a procession of staff and dignitaries including mayor of Worcester Cllr Alan Amos from the Guildhall to the Cathedral – where they were met with a rousing round of applause.

Harry Turner, chairman of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust – which runs Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital – was one of the speakers at the event and thanked everyone present for their work.

“Thank you for choosing health care as your profession, thank you for choosing to work in Worcestershire, thank you for being there when we need you most, and for many here today thank you for volunteering to help in our NHS,” he said.

“We have a brilliant team in Worcestershire and I am proud to be your chairman. Moreover I am grateful that I can rely on you for myself my family my friends, and everyone in Worcestershire.

“This county is a better place to live and work because of you.”

A number of staff members and volunteers working at the three hospitals also told their stories, including matron Marsha Jones, who said: “I wouldn’t want to be working anywhere else.

“I am honoured and proud to be part of this immense team,” she said.

Mid Worcestershire MP Sir Peter Luff also gave a reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan while Bishop of Worcester Rt Rev Dr John Inge personally thanked those who had cared for his wife Denise, who died in May, during her cancer treatment.

The congregation also enjoyed a performance by the Voices for Health choir – a collection of staff from across the NHS in the county – and NHS England’s chief nursing officer Jane Cummings also gave an address after having been invited via Twitter by the trust’s chaplaincy team leader Rev David Southall, the brains behind the event, and said she felt “privileged” to attend.

Speaking after the service, which kicked off a week of events celebrating staff across the trust, Rev Southall said he was delighted by how well it had gone.

“It is a mark of the regard in which NHS Staff are held that so many distinguished guests turned up to be part of the service,” he said.

“The staff who spoke shared moving stories of what their professions mean to them and the care and compassion which they show on a daily basis.

“If I take one thing away from the service it is the sense of pride I felt in my colleagues. And I think they did us all proud.”