Doctor Tony Redmond completes final aid mission after 30 years

Tony Redmond founded the frontline medical aid charity UK-Med

A doctor who spent 30 years on the frontline in war zones, refugee camps, and disease outbreaks has returned from his final humanitarian mission.

Tony Redmond, 70, has delivered aid amid gunfights in Sarajevo and during the Ebola outbreak in west Africa.

He recently spent two weeks in Ukraine, which was his final aid assignment ahead of his retirement from UK-Med.

Prof Redmond said it had been "an unbelievable privilege to help people when they're in such need".

The doctor, who is a professor at the University of Manchester, began his career at Wythenshawe Hospital.

Troubled by the lack of emergency at the scene care across the region in the 1980s, he formed the South Manchester Ambulance Accident Rescue Team (SMART) in 1988 .

The team helped train medical staff in emergency care and acted in support of the rescue and ambulance services in Manchester.

Prof Redmond was in Ukraine for two weeks meeting UK-Med volunteers

But that was just the beginning for Prof Redmond, who later became medical director at Manchester's Nightingale Hospital.

"Not long after we'd formed SMART there was an earthquake in Armenia and an appeal went out for help", he said.

"We were one of a few teams that had a specialist understanding of how to treat injuries outside of hospital."

Upon returning from Armenia in 1988, Prof Redmond and his team were once again needed, this time on home soil.

"We landed back and in no time we were in Lockerbie", he said.

"To go from one of the biggest earthquake disasters to the biggest terror attack on British soil was quite something.

"It was obviously incredibly hard and upsetting work, but it's an unbelievable privilege to help people when they're in such need."

Prof Redmond with the South Manchester Ambulance Accident Rescue Team on their first international trip to Armenia

In the years that followed Prof Redmond set up UK-Med, which is currently providing support in Ukraine.

Prof Redmond said: "We've got around 100 clinicians spread across the country working in some really difficult conditions.

"I've just been for two weeks and although we have very good security measures, you can hear shelling and feel the vibrations.

"But the Ukrainian people are enduring that all the time, their spirit motivates and moves me."

Prof Redmond will step down from the board of UK-Med later this year but will continue in his academic post at the University of Manchester.

"When we set out, I had no idea where we would go," he said.

"But what is clear is that we were only able to do it with the support of Manchester.

"We rely on people donating and they were always behind us."