THE annual general meeting of the trust which runs Basingstoke hospital is being held next month.

In the 70th anniversary year for the NHS, the Hampshire Hospitals' annual general meeting (AGM) will not only reflect and celebrate the past year, but the history of the NHS and Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT).

The free event will take place at The Ark, at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital, on Tuesday, 17 July and is open to all to attend.

There will be an exhibition which starts underway at 5.30pm, giving visitors the chance to find out more about the work that goes on across the trust.

There will be an interactive exhibition where visitors can practice performing CPR, brush up on first aid skills with the trust's clinical skills team and find out more about the equipment used to perform critical testing at the patient bedside in the trust's hospitals.

Visitors will also be able to meet hospital staff and the trust’s elected governors and find out more about hospital services and future plans.

The AGM presentation, covering the trust’s performance in 2017/18, begins at 7pm, after which consultant physician Professor John Ramage will deliver a talk on research and innovation at Hampshire Hospitals; past, present and future.

Professor Ramage is a consultant physician in the gastroenterology department at HHFT as well as Kings College Hospitals and lead clinician for the Kings Health Partners, Kent and Hampshire Hospitals Centre of Excellence for Neuroendocrine Tumours.