WHILE most people celebrate Christmas today at home with their families, a large group of NHS staff are working to ensure we all stay healthy.

Hundreds of workers around Oxfordshire will make up the skeleton staff who keep hospitals, out-of-hours GP services and the ambulance service afloat while everyone else is tucking into turkey.

Some are volunteers. Community responders work unpaid for South Central Ambulance Trust, making sure patients with life-threatening conditions are treated within minutes of a 999 call.

They are a life-line before paramedics arrive on the scene and are based in towns and villages across Oxfordshire.

South Central Ambulance Trust last year dealt with 1,600 emergency calls across Oxfordshire between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, with more than 200 on December 25.

And this year, 100 people in ambulances and in the control room will keep the county service going today.

Chief executive Will Hancock said: "I'm extremely proud of the dedication and commitment of all the staff and volunteers who contribute to the excellent service we provide in delivering the right healthcare response to each emergency call."

The Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust reduces its load over the Christmas period by discharging as many patients as possible from Oxford's John Radcliffe and Churchill Hospitals, and The Horton, Banbury.

But all three sites still have to look after the critically ill and emergency cases.

ORH nursing director Elaine Strachan-Hall will be working on Christmas Day, and paid tribute to the staff who sacrifice their own family time to ensure patients have wonderful care.

She said: "I want to say thank you to all who regularly give up their Christmas. It's not such a skeleton staff as people might think."

TINA MURPHY: Sister at John Radcliffe Hospital emergency department When Mrs Murphy gets to work on Christmas Day, she will know she hasn't left her husband Simon home alone - because as a paramedic in Northamptonshire he is working too.

The 37-year-old nurse also knows that the festive day will not be quieter than any other day in Oxford's busy accident and emergency. Instead, many of the patients will come in with seasonal injuries.

She explained: "There is no great deal of difference in the number of patients we deal with to any other day, although we don't get so many medically unwell people in the morning.

"Instead, we get a lot of children who haven't used their new toys correctly, and at lunchtime we get a few people who haven't had much experience with a carving knife before.

"It gets busy in the afternoon with a lot of medical emergencies, because people try to hold on as long as they can."

As Christmas Day is just another normal shift, the emergency department has the same amount of staff as it would any other day.

There are 11 nurses and four doctors in the morning, with the nursing team increasing as the day goes on.

Mrs Murphy said: "Everyone is reasonably cheerful on Christmas Day and we all make an effort to bring something in to nibble at during the shift.

"People with families tend to do a half shift so they can see them for at least half of the day.

"But I think most people here understand they've joined a profession which provides care all day every day.

"We know we're here to help our patients."

SANDRA HUTTON: Sister at JR's Cardio-Thoracic Critical Care For Mrs Hutton, 43, her half-day working on Christmas Day will be one of her final shifts before she leaves to go on maternity leave with her second child.

But the fact that she's 29 weeks pregnant will not be the hardest thing for her to bare.

She said: "My son Daniel is three and this is the first year he's old enough to understand about Father Christmas, and I'll miss him opening his presents. But my husband Mick is going to video it for me.

"I'm quite lucky because I have family living in Oxfordshire and my mother is cooking Christmas dinner, so I'll leave the hospital and go straight to her house."

Patients in CTCC are very ill, recovering from life-saving heart surgery, and operations will take place up until Christmas Eve.

During the Christmas Bank Holidays, only emergency surgery takes place and staffing is reduced by about a third, from 11 to 7.

Mrs Hutton, of Botley, Oxford, said: "It's a lovely atmosphere on Christmas Day. Because it's a time for family, and none of us are with ours, we all join together.

"We're also jolly for our patients and their families who come in to spend time with them over the festive period.

"It can also be a very sad place to be, so it's a time for reflection. I really don't mind doing it. I volunteer to do it. It's all about team work."

PAUL BANHAM: Community Responder for South Central Ambulance Trust MR BANHAM used to work nights in the ambulance trust's control room, and a change in jobs means this will be the first time he has been at home for Christmas day.

But instead of sitting back and enjoying the festive fun with his wife Leah, the 22-year-old will be on standby as a community responder for South Central Ambulance Trust.

He has been doing the voluntary work for two years, attending severely ill patients within a mile radius of his city centre home and treating them before paramedics arrive at the scene.

To get to patients rapidly through the city's congested streets, he always uses his bicycle to get to 999 calls.

He said: "I've always enjoyed helping people, so when the opportunity came up to be a community responder I jumped at the chance.

"My wife is quite supportive. She knows I like helping people.

"Using my bike is easier in Oxford, because of the traffic, the one way streets and narrow lanes. I carry a defibrillator, oxygen and a selection of bandages, which I carry in a specially made rucksack provided by the ambulance trust."

Although community responders are not fully qualified paramedics, Mr Banham, who now works for the county's out-of-hours GP service, knows first hand how important their work is.

He said: "We'd all love to have more paramedics sat on every street corner, but in reality that will never happen, because they're always needed elsewhere.

"The fact that there are volunteers street by street, town by town is fantastic because they can help save someone's life."