King Charles III presents Best Doctor Award at The Sun’s Who Cares Wins awards 2022

The Sun’s Who Cares Wins health awards celebrate our healthcare heroes from the frontline NHS staff to the ordinary people who go above and beyond to keep us all safe. 

Dr Freda Newlands, from Dumfries and Galloway, was awarded Best Doctor at The Sun’s Who Cares Wins health awards 2022, hosted by Davina McCall and attended by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, leader of the opposition Sir Keir Starmer 

Some of Britain’s best-loved charity campaigners and famous faces were on hand to present the awards including Anthony Joshua, Martin and Roman Kemp, Christine Lampard, Ellie Simmonds, Harry Redknapp, Susannah Reid and Mel B. 

Dr Freda was hosted at Balmoral Castle in September by the then Prince of Wales when she was presented with the award. Last night (Tuesday 22nd November) on stage she collected the trophy from comedian Al Murray in front of a celebrity audience in London at The Sun’s Who Cares Wins awards ceremony. 

Broadcast on Channel 4 and produced by Thames (a Fremantle label), the awards are sponsored by The National Lottery. 

The Sun’s Who Cares Wins Awards will be broadcast on Sunday 27th November at 6:30pm on Channel 4 and will be available on All4. 

Dr Newlands is an emergency medicine specialist and has travelled the world providing urgent medical care to those that need it most, most recently spending two months in Ukraine with the frontline medical aid charity, UK-Med, treating victims of the war.

Dr Newlands has also spent time working in Jordan, Bhutan, Gaza, as well as Bangladesh to treat patients in the Rohingya refugee camps during the deadly diptheria outbreak in 2017, 

She was inspired to get into medicine as a youngster growing up watching the news, but became a biology teacher before starting medical school as a mature student in 2004.

She said: “I was always struck by the reports from foreign correspondents, on international famines and the innocent civilians who paid the price for wars in their countries.”

Her first overseas post came in 2014, when she was posted on the northern Jordan border with Medecins Sans Frontieres. 

Dr Newlands said:  “It was harrowing and what I saw there remains some of the worst injuries I’ve had to treat. Children with really awful bomb blast injuries, mine blasts, three limb amputees, horrific burns. It was my job to stabilise patients as an emergency doctor so they could go on to have surgery and rehabilitation.”

When Dr Newlands returned home, she registered as a member of UK-Med and worked in Bangladesh until 2018. From 2018 until 2019, she was part of the UK-Med co-ordination team. 

Dr Newlands, who had worked for NHS Dumfries and Galloway as an emergency department doctor during the Covid-19 pandemic, travelled to Ukraine less than a week after the war had started with UK-Med where she stayed for eight weeks. 

She was nominated by colleague Richard Dear, 52, head of logistics for UK Med. 

He said: “I've worked with Freda since 2016, in the UK, Yangon, Myanmar and Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

Freda brings so much more than just her medical care to her work as a doctor. Her medical care is of course excellent, and she delivers it with professionalism and calm in some of the most uncomfortable and dangerous settings [with] patients around the world, [with different] cultures, languages and needs, but always with care, compassion and empathy.

Someone who takes these risks, and is this selfless, kind and giving, deserves every accolade and credit for her dedication to both the UK health service and humanitarian response.”

HRH King Charles III said: “Many many congratulations. It’s incredibly well deserved. When I think of all the things you do, I can't believe it.”

When meeting His Majesty, Dr Freda Newlands said: “This isn't just for me but all the clinicians and all the other doctors who work in humanitarian settings, and without them I couldn't do it. It's a privilege to do my job everyday.”

On stage collecting the award, Dr Freda said: “I am completely overwhelmed. Little did I know the very next day Prince Charles would become our King. It's been quite an overwhelming secret to keep for two and a half months. It is with a huge dollop of imposter syndrome that I stand here before you as Best Doctor as I am clearly not. But I'm very proud to be here and to be recognised for the work I have done with UK Med who support NHS clinicians and healthcare professionals who leave their jobs with the NHS to go out to humanitarian settings who are suffering in times of conflict. So it is with great thanks to everyone including my family who are here today. Thank you for supporting me and allowing me to disappear off quite frequently, I have to say, and thank you for the endless support and help.”