Photo taken by Amina shows Airedale Hospital health care support worker Anisha Javaid (centre), alongside Yorkshire Ambulance Service paramedics Paul Dearden and Deb Helliwell.
75 NHS staff and volunteer photos were shortlisted, with images from other staff including a portrait of Britain’s oldest volunteer at 102 years old and a patient playing the violin during her brain surgery.
Amina Abu El Hawa is a healthcare support worker at the trust and a talented photographer and took photos of staff in the ED team throughout the pandemic, one of which she entered for the competition.
Amina’s photo was selected for the Partners category which encapsulates that every day the NHS is witness to extraordinary teamwork.
The photo which helped her get to the shortlist is titled ‘A Perfect Partnership’ and shows the special bond with colleagues in the local ambulance services and the extended ED family, all working together towards a shared goal of helping people. In the photo is health care support worker Anisha Javaid, alongside paramedics Paul Dearden and Deb Helliwell.
The national competition, run by NHS England in partnership with Fujifilm UK, saw hundreds of the health service’s staff and volunteers from across the country enter photographs that told their unique stories of what the NHS means to them.
The 75 shortlisted photographs, including Amina’s photo, will be displayed at an exhibition at Fujifilm House of Photography in Covent Garden, London and open to public viewing from the 5th July 2023 – 75 years to the day from the date that the NHS was established.
Amina says:
“When I heard about the competition and saw the category for our partners I knew I had to capture the relationship we share with our colleagues in the ambulance service. We share so many experiences together, we cry, we laugh and we are always there for one another. I feel this photo encapsulates our bond.”
“I am extremely excited to have been shortlisted, especially after seeing some of the quality of entries. They are amazing! I feel very proud I made it this far and to see my photo as part of the exhibition.”
Dame Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer for England and one of the six competition judges, said:
“We were amazed at the quality of photographs submitted to the competition – it’s incredible to see the way entrants have documented life in the NHS.
The compassion, the ingenuity, the camaraderie, the good times and when it gets tough – it’s all captured throughout the five categories and it’s a really fitting way to mark 75 years of the NHS.”
Joining Dame Ruth May on the judging panel were This Morning’s resident GP Dr Ellie, award-winning journalist Victoria Macdonald, eminent photographer Lewis Khan, Dr Habib Naqvi MBE and Fujifilm’s Theo Georghiades.
Tom Watanabe, Managing Director for Fujifilm UK, said: “We are delighted that so many NHS staff and volunteers have had the chance to tell their stories through these powerful images.
As an organisation that started in photography and has worked in healthcare for over 80 years delivering diagnostic imaging and medical devices, we were uniquely placed to work with the NHS to run this competition and are delighted to the public will be able to come to the exhibition and pay tribute to our wonderful health service.”
Each of the 75 shortlisted photographers have been invited to a special ceremony on the 4th July at the Fujifilm House of Photography to unveil all of the finalist’s photographs, with a winner for each of the competition’s five categories announced before the event.
The five winners will also have their photograph displayed at the NHS 75th anniversary service at Westminster Abbey on Wednesday 5th July.