'I'm not all mouth and no trousers': Rod Stewart visits hospital to pay for day of patient scans amid NHS backlog and cuts
24 February 2023, 19:38
Sir Rod Stewart said he wanted to "prove I'm not all mouth and no trousers" as he visited his local NHS hospital where he paid for a day of scans for patients to help cut waiting lists.
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The 78-year-old star greeted patients as he climbed from his car outside Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex.
He shook hands with a series of NHS staff outside a mobile MRI scanning unit, joking "let's all have a sing-song" as he signed autographs.
It comes after the singer-songwriter last month called a live phone-in segment on Sky News and offered to pay for people to have hospital scans, having just returned from having a scan himself.
Sir Rod's donation covered a day of scans for patients, which were carried out at private healthcare firm InHealth's mobile MRI scanning unit - positioned at the hospital site.
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Sir Rod Stewart visits NHS hospital where he paid for patients’ scans
Explaining how he came to pay for the day of scans, Sir Rod said: "I had just come from my scan in a private clinic near Harley Street.
"I walked in and said, 'I'm terribly sorry I'm half hour late'.
"They said, 'don't worry, there's hardly anybody in here today'.
"There were eight people with hardly anything to do.
"Then I thought this is a terrible injustice, so here we are."
He said he was "here not to talk about politics, please, because otherwise it overshadows what we're trying to do".
Sir Rod, who has had six number one hits in the UK charts, said he would like to pay for scans elsewhere too.
"If this is a big success, which I think it will be, I'd like to do it in Belfast, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, and just keep it going, and hope some other people follow me," he said.
"Because I want to prove I'm not all mouth and trousers and that's why I'm here to prove that I followed through with it, ok folks."
He added: "There must be enough money in the coffers to pay up for these nurses - only two years ago we were clapping and now...
"Bless them, they work so hard, salt of the earth."
