A WOMAN who is one of the longest-serving volunteers at Kidderminster Hospital has just celebrated an impressive milestone.

Gloria Painter originally took up nursing as a teenager in the Black Country and came to work as a state registered nurse at Kidderminster in 1993.

She began volunteering while she was still working as a nurse and helped out on most of the wards, making beds and offering general help when the town had a general hospital.

She has now clocked up 30 years of volunteering after switching to the League of Friends to act as a wayfinder 15 years ago.

Gloria, who is 80 in March, said: “I have worked all over this hospital and have loved every minute.

“My mum was a matron at the QE hospital in Birmingham and I always wanted to be a nurse.”

"But I also volunteered for other duties because I thought it would be good to put something back into the hospital.”

Her current role, involving two four-hour shifts a week, is to ensure visitors arrive on time for their appointments.

She is based at the hospital’s reception area and assists patients and families through the maze of services at the extensive Bewdley Road site.

She said: “A lot of people come into an unfamiliar hospital environment and get anxious as they are unsure of what is going to happen to them.

“I help them get to the right place at the right time and it’s nice when quite a few come back to thank me for the help after their appointments.”

Gloria, who lives in Bewdley, would encourage anyone looking to be a volunteer, to get in touch with the League of Friends for details of a range of roles such as wayfinding to working in the Friends coffee shop.

She added: “Helping out at the hospital is definitely a rewarding job. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t enjoy it."

As well as her hospital role, she and her husband have volunteered for 30 years and 60 years respectively for the Severn Valley Railway.