The NHS staff gifting Christmas Day to their patients

Christmas songs play softly on the radio, competing with the steady beeping of machines monitoring patients' vitals.

Tinsel hangs from noticeboards and Christmas trees glow beside nurses' stations.

The wards are fully dressed for the festive holiday season, but the work of caring for patients continues without pause.

It is Christmas Day at Bradford Royal Infirmary, and many patients here are far from home and their families.

But so too are many staff – the doctors, nurses, porters, domestic workers and volunteers who have chosen to sacrifice their family time to bring healing, warmth and cheer to those on the wards instead.

One of them is 64-year-old Brian Lowe.

Brian has worked as a porter at the hospital for 28 years and has spent 15 Christmases on the wards. This year, alongside his regular duties, he is dressing as Santa, visiting the children's wards and handing out toys donated by members of the public.

When the BBC meets him a little earlier, Brian is already in festive mode – wearing a Mohican hairpiece made entirely out of Christmas tinsel!

For Brian, the motivation to be here on December 25 is rooted in how hard Christmas in hospital can be, as well as his former experiences as a youth worker, which showed him the value of small kindnesses.

"It's hard enough being in hospital," he says. "But when you see Santa Claus coming round, hopefully you will smile, and that's what it's all about. That's what we're there for – to keep them happy."

He explains that, for him, the role is as much about creating atmosphere as delivering presents, about "having a laugh and a joke with everybody and making everybody happy if I can do, just to see the smile on their faces".

In Brian's experience, those moments can stay with people for years to come.

Around a million people across the UK are estimated to be at work on Christmas Day, with health and social care among the biggest sectors on duty.

NHS England's chief executive said in a recent year staff would be serving around 100,000 Christmas dinners, dispatching about 20,000 ambulances and delivering around 1,500 babies on Christmas Day alone.

On the children's wards here especially, staff say maintaining a sense of Christmas matters deeply – even when young patients are seriously ill.

Festive outfits, donated toys and familiar traditions help soften what can otherwise be a frightening experience for families.

Also working Christmas Day at BRI is Dr Bilal Iftikhar, a paediatric doctor and father of two young children.

Originally from Kashmir in Pakistan, he graduated as a doctor in 2017 and moved to the UK six years ago, first to Portsmouth and then to Bradford, where he has worked at the Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust for four-and-a-half years.

As a Muslim, Dr Iftikhar chooses to work Christmas Day so his Christian colleagues can maximise spiritual and celebratory time with their families.

"I know how important it is for them," he says.

"Whenever I have some kind of event, they also give me some time off, like at Eid."

Despite the pressures of the day, he says Christmas on the children's wards has a distinctive feel.

"It's always fun because it's like a festival and we are trying to help the people while they are stuck here with us.

"We try our best to make them happy. It's obviously not the best Christmas in the hospital, but we try to make it better for them."

Elsewhere in the hospital, volunteers are supporting elderly patients who may be spending Christmas alone.

On Ward 17, patients share their views about staff and volunteers giving up their day.

"They're wonderful," says one elderly gentleman.

Another says he is "not really a Christmas person", but appreciates the company.

When a volunteer jokes that he will return singing Christmas carols and with mince pies, one patient laughs and replies: "Don't bother."

The volunteer they are talking about is Vinod Chawla, a retired financial advisor, originally from Bradford.

Vinod sits with patients at risk of falls, chats to those with no visitors and sometimes helps with feeding.

"I love coming here just to see patients smile," he says. "A lot of the patients don't get visitors. Sometimes just sitting down and having a chat makes me happy."

A nurse passing through the ward pauses to offer her own thoughts.

She calls Vinod "fabulous", saying he is "very helpful, very pleasant", and "always there for the patients".

"He helps us out as well," she adds. "He's an absolutely amazing man."

For those spending Christmas Day stuck in a hospital bed, it is the small human moments – a conversation, a smile, a quiet act of kindness – that cut through the noise, reminding them that even here, and even today, they are not alone.

And for Brian, Bilal and Vinod, working Christmas Day does not mean missing out entirely.

Once their shifts are done, they too will go home – to families, to children, to meals shared later in the day.

And as Christmas continues beyond the hospital doors, they leave knowing they have shared some festive cheer, and helped deliver a little seasonal warmth where it is needed most.

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