Glastonbury: NHS workers prepare for Pyramid Stage set

NHS staff are due to perform on the festival's main stage

NHS workers will be welcomed on to the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival on Saturday to celebrate 75 years of the health service.

A group including nurses, doctors and physiotherapists will perform a poem alongside poet Miles Chambers.

It will be followed by a film documenting the NHS's history.

Speaking ahead of the event, the festival's co-organiser Emily Eavis said social responsibility was "at the heart of what we do".

Ms Eavis told the PA news agency: "What makes (Glastonbury) different is that there is this heart within the festival, which is giving back and has responsibility towards the outside world.

"I think it's always those principles that run through the whole show, and I think you can feel it."

She added: "Someone was asking me about, what the spirit (of the festival) is, and you can never pinpoint the spirit.

"But I think that there is something that permeates the whole thing, which is a feeling of going further than just in these fields, that's the social responsibility element."

'Incredible privilege'

Each year, the festival aims to give £2m to charity.

Ben Matthews, a physiotherapist and first contact practitioner from the local Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, is among those who will be taking to the Pyramid Stage.

"I think we are all feeling very excited, and nervous, all at the same time," he said.

Fellow Somerset local Rebecca Hall, 53, who works as a GP at the nearby Glastonbury Surgery, said it was "an incredible privilege" to be part of the festival.

The event falls just ahead of the NHS's official anniversary, which is on 5 July.

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