These Are The Hands by U A Fanthorpe

These Are The Hands by U A Fanthorpe

This anthology offers a unique insight into the real experiences of the people at the heart of the NHS - from the student nurse at the start of his career to the heart surgeon on the eve of her retirement. We also hear the stories of those whose vital work is often unseen and unsung from domestic cleaning staff to sign language interpreters. The poems offer unflinchingly honest and intimate accounts from the people who care for us from the moment of birth to the end of life. In crystallising the most beautiful and painful moments of being human, they speak directly to all our experience. Above all these poems are about our shared humanity. They are about the compassion and care that lie at the heart of the NHS and in all our lives. They also serve as a stark reminder of the human cost of trying to offer compassionate care in a system that is underfunded and understaffed and the importance of showing the same compassion and support to the staff we depend on to hold the NHS together. Leading UK poets have donated poems to this anthology including Michael Rosen, Roger McGough, Lemn Sissay, Sabrina Mahfouz, Kate Clanchy, Sam Guglani, Charly Cox, Molly Case, Wendy Cope and the estates of UA Fanthorpe, Dannie Abse and Julia Darling. All proceeds from this book will go to NHS Charities Together which supports over 135 official NHS Charities raising money for NHS hospitals, ambulance services, community and mental health services across the UK.

Deborah Alma is a poet from the United Kingdom who is an Honorary Research Fellow at Keele University and teaches Creative Writing there. She has used poetry with dementia patients, hospice patients, vulnerable women's organizations, and youngsters in schools. She also works as an Emergency Poet, dispensing poetry from the back of her vintage ambulance. Emergency Poet: An Anti-Stress Poetry Anthology, The Everyday Poet: Poems to Live By, #Me Too: Rallying Against Sexual Harassment: A Women's Poetry Anthology, and Ten Poems of Happiness are among her many publications. Dirty Laundry, her first full collection, is published by Nine Arches Publishing. She and her spouse, poet James Sheard, co-founded the world's first walk-in Poetry Pharmacy in Shropshire, which was covered on the BBC and Sky TV.