A nursing consultant from North Tees and Hartlepool Hospital has had poems he has written included in an NHS publication.

Entitled ‘These are the hands', the collection is written by NHS staff and some of the county’s leading writers.

Mel McEvoy, a nursing consultant in palliative care has three poems included called 'He swims in the silence', 'Do your own dead come for you?' and 'Living in an empty house'.

Proceeds from the collection will be donated to tackle the current coronavirus pandemic.

Mel said: “I’m very proud to have my poems included. It’s a book about the NHS where I have spent most of my working life. And it’s all for charity which is fantastic.

“The book shows the altruism of the NHS staff and touches on the many times they go beyond themselves to care. They’re drawn to, and have a desire to, do the right thing for the patient and society in general. The NHS is an important piece of the fabric that holds this nation together.

“I try to catch that in my poems.”

Mel has a long interest in poetry, finding a great personal satisfaction in aiming to create writing that perfectly encompasses the elements he sees as vital to creating a successful poem, which include the poetic form, the imagery, the sound and the meaning of the words.

He said: “Working in end of life care has been a privilege and has had a profound effect on my life.

“I’ve been with people as they come to accept their oncoming death, I’ve seen how it affects them and how sometimes from that knowledge comes enormous strength.

“My poems may seem like they centre around end-of-life, but really they are about life. They explore the past, where people come from, their experiences and have been described as a ‘narrative of emotion’.”

Mel, who has a previous collection of poems called 'An Emptied Space' published by Mudfog Press, lists Seamus Heaney and Charles Bukowski as two of his principal influences.

He recently completed a Master’s degree in Creative Writing with Distinction.

His final project was a collection of poems centred around the lift at the University Hospital of North Tees and the people whose life stories are captured while travelling up and down to the wards.