At the recent Annual General Meeting of the Friends of Frome Hospital Trust, high praise was given to the loyal service of their retiring chairman, Peter Smith, after ten years in office.
The Friends report, “Peter joined the Friends in 1998 and together with the late and highly respected Dr John Moxon raised over £600,000 and led the fight for the new hospital. They both received Civic Awards from Frome Town Council for their efforts.
“The new Community Hospital was finally opened in 2008. Peter became Chairman and the Friends shifted their emphasis from being primarily a fundraising organisation to one supporting both the hospital and the health and wellbeing of the local community as a whole.
“One of the objectives of the Friends under his leadership has been to enable patients to be treated in Frome wherever possible, to avoid travel elsewhere. In the hospital itself, the Friends have funded a range of supplementary equipment for the main Marshfield Ward and the Birthing Unit ,that are not provided by the NHS.
“In the local community, support has been provided to counselling services, the weekly Leg Club run by Frome Medical Practice to monitor and treat elderly patients with ulcerated legs, and the renowned Community Defibrillator Project, which provides a network of 25 publicly-available defibrillators in the town and surrounding villages. The Friends have also made it possible for all the schools in the Frome area to benefit from the mobile classroom service, provided by Life Education Wessex, teaching children about their bodies and how to look after them.”
Peter Smith says,“There will always be a place in my heart for this hospital of ours and pride in the work we have done as Friends in the local community. I have always had a tremendous respect for the Matron and her staff who have come to make Frome’s hospital so highly regarded. I have been supported throughout the past decade by a great team of trustees and volunteers.”
The Friends say. “We now enter a new era under the chairmanship of one of our long-standing trustees and Vice Chairman, Derek Trick, who was unanimously elected at the AGM.”
Pictured: Peter Smith (right) handing over office to incoming chairman, Derek Trick.
