The Sun’s Who Cares Wins celebrates healthcare heroes from the frontline NHS staff to the ordinary people who go above and beyond to keep us all safe
Dr Freda Newlands from Dumfries and Galloway was awarded best doctor at The Sun’s Who Cares Wins health awards 2022, hosted by Davina McCall and attended by prime minister Rishi Sunak and leader of the opposition Sir Keir Starmer.
Dr Newlands was hosted at Balmoral Castle in September by the then-Prince of Wales when she was presented with the award. On Tuesday, she collected the trophy from comedian Al Murray in front of a celebrity audience in London at the awards ceremony.
Broadcast on Channel 4, the awards are sponsored by The National Lottery and will be broadcast on Sunday 27th November at 6:30pm.
Some of Britain’s best-loved charity campaigners and famous faces were on hand to present the awards including Anthony Joshua, Martin and Roman Kemp, Christine Lampard, Ellie Simmonds, Harry Redknapp, Susannah Reid and Mel B.
Dr Newlands is an emergency medicine specialist and has travelled the world providing urgent medical care to those that need it most, most recently spending two months in Ukraine with the frontline medical aid charity, UK-Med, treating victims of the war.
She has also spent time working in Jordan, Bhutan and Gaza and also worked in Bangladesh to treat patients in the Rohingya refugee camps during the deadly diphtheria outbreak in 2017.
She said: “I was always struck by the reports from foreign correspondents, on international famines and the innocent civilians who paid the price for wars in their countries.”
Dr Newlands, who had worked for NHS Dumfries and Galloway as an emergency department doctor during the Covid-19 pandemic, travelled to Ukraine less than a week after the war had started with UK-Med where she stayed for eight weeks.
She was nominated by colleague Richard Dear, 52, head of logistics for UK Med.
The King congratulated Dr Newlands on her award win, saying: “Many many congratulations. It’s incredibly well deserved. When I think of all the things you do, I can’t believe it.”
When meeting His Majesty, Dr Newlands said: “This isn’t just for me but all the clinicians and all the other doctors who work in humanitarian settings, and without them I couldn’t do it. It’s a privilege to do my job everyday.”
