If you see a colleague with a bright green lanyard then you know they're one of our new Freedom to Speak Up Ambassadors.

They are in all roles across the Trust and have volunteered to be an extra, confidential  way of raising issues here at CHFT. You know you can talk to them in confidence and share your thoughts with them.

Very soon all our Ambassadors  will be appearing on info boards in your area promoting them and how they can support you at work. They include anaesthetist Peter Bamber who tells us more about himself in our latest Hello My Name Is....

He says: 

Hello My Name Is... Peter Bamber.

I was born in Liverpool.  My father was an office worker (before computers) and my mother had various jobs including pharmacist’s shop assistant, biscuit packer (before robots did it) and inspector of electronic circuit boards.  I went to the local Catholic primary school where I passed the ‘eleven plus’ exam and went to an all-boys, Catholic, grammar school.  I stopped identifying as a Catholic in my late twenties and became an atheist in my forties.  I now identify as a Humanist.  I studied medicine at the University of Liverpool in the days when there were student grants to pay all tuition fees and many expenses too.  I have a brother 3½ years younger than me.  He, too, became a doctor.  I was married to a physiotherapist for many years.  After divorce I met a midwife, Donna, with whom I live very happily in the upper Calder Valley.

What is your position? 

Consultant Anaesthetist, Staff Governor and Freedom to Speak Up ambassador

Summarise your career background

After medical school I spent a year as a houseman in Liverpool.  I started anaesthesia in Middlesbrough and after a year went to Sheffield for further SHO and registrar training.    After getting my Fellowship of the Royal College of Anaesthetists I went to Leeds for senior registrar training (which doesn’t happen any longer).  I started as a consultant in Halifax in early 1991.

What is the highlight of your career so far?

I once saved a woman’s life when I pulled half a sausage out of her larynx.  She had started asphyxiating at her dinner table and when  I saw her in A&E she was blue and virtually unconscious due to oxygen shortage.   An A&E doctor had been unable to work out  the problem. I looked down her throat and saw something odd pointing out and fished out half a sausage.  The unbitten end of the sausage had been acting as a one way valve against her vocal cords leaving her able to breathe out but not in.  As soon as I retrieved it she took probably the biggest breath in I’ve ever heard.  I believe she was unharmed but I bet she was wary around sausages after that!

Sum up your role in three words

Wake patients up!  

What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A scientist.

Who is your hero/heroine and why?
Albert Einstein because, against the opinion of his schoolmaster, with no formal mathematical training and against a sceptical establishment he came up with the best theory that described how the Universe works on the large scale.  All of his predictions have proven true.  Also he was an ethical scientist.

When you are not at work how do you relax?
I read about science and technology when at home and fiction (usually science fiction) when on holiday.  I listen to music.  (And I do mean listen!  It’s not playing in the background.)  I like trying out new hifi equipment.  I like using a camera well.  I enjoy walking in the countryside with my partner and our dog.  I enjoy a little DIY.  I like watching good dramas and documentaries.  This year I learned to SCUBA dive which has added an extra dimension to holidays.

What is your favourite place? 
Exmoor in Somerset.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

I once held the FA Cup in my hands. I grew up in Anfield, Liverpool.  The Liverpool FC team trainer (and subsequently manager) Joe Fagan lived over the road.  One year in which the club won the FA cup he was allowed to pop it in the boot of his car and take it home for a few hours one afternoon.  This was in the days (1960-70s) when you could do that sort of thing because… well… why not?  The idea was to let his family see it and take some photos with it.  One of the boys popped over to our house to see whether my brother and I wanted to see it.  Now despite living close to Anfield stadium we weren’t a football-following family so the attitude of my brother and I was ‘There’s nothing on the telly at the moment and we’re not doing anything else so, yes, okay’.  So we walked over the road and there in the Fagan’s front room was the FA cup with its red and white streamers still on it (the team had won it only a few days before).  I remember picking it up and thinking how heavy it was.  My mum had a camera but it came out only for holidays and day trips (developing and printing was expensive!) so there’s no photographic evidence.  The irony was that whilst most kids in Liverpool would have given a lot to handle it my brother and I, disinterested in football, were amongst the few who did.

Twitter/Facebook?
Facebook but mainly for keeping in touch with friends and family.  I restrict my ‘friends’ to people with whom I’ve socialised out of work.  I have a habit of posting political messages from time to time.

The NHS was 70 in July. How does that make you feel?
It needs urgent rejuvenation if it’s to live a longer and healthy life.

Contact Peter on: peter.bamber@cht.nhs.uk or call him, or drop him a text on 07801 973 909 for a chat in strictest confidence. You'll find the contact information for all our ambassadors here.