A DOCTOR who has worked in Warrington Hospital’s A&E department for 21 years is set to retire after more than four decades working in the NHS.

Dr Steve Crowder, a consultant in emergency medicine at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, is retiring in the New Year after 42 years in the health service.

A long and varied career has seen him work both in the UK and Bermuda, also serving as a GP and training to be a surgeon.

He said: “My dad was always fascinated by the human body and he did his national service in the medical division in the RAF, so I probably got it off him.

“This is my third career – when I very first qualified I thought I wanted to be a surgeon, then I was embarking on a career in medicine when I got a call from a hospital in Bermuda asking me to come out to work there.

“I ended up staying there for three years working in A&E, medicine, paediatrics, psychiatric, geriatrics and a whole host of jobs before I ended up coming back to the UK.

“Then I did my GP training and worked as a GP for a couple years, but then the lure of A&E called me back.”

Having recently become a granddad for the first time, the Liverpool FC fan is looking forward to spending time with his grandchild, watching his football team and travelling in his retirement.

Dr Crowder has been working in A&E since the mid-1980s, the last 21 years of which have been served at Warrington Hospital.

He added: “A&E has got a lot busier since then – we see about 87,000 patients a year whereas when I first started here we were seeing just under 60,000.

“For many years, around 20 per cent of patients had major injuries and 80 per cent had minor injuries but now more and more are becoming major patients – we’re probably on about a 50/50 split now.

“I’ve worked in lots of different A&E departments both here and abroad, and this is certainly one of the friendliest I’ve ever worked in.

“There are actually quite a few people from when I started who are still here, so I think we’ve maintained a core of quite senior people.”