THE Chairman of a Cumbrian-based charity specialising in providing 24-hour emergency pre-hospital medical care, has decided now is the right time to retire after over 30 years of service as a GP.

Dr Theo Weston MBE founded BEEP Doctors (BASICS Cumbria) in April 1994 and has dedicated his career to saving the lives of others whilst also volunteering for the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS).

BEEP Doctors work alongside (GNAAS) and now have 12 doctors who are fully trained in providing pre-hospital anaesthetics and surgical procedures to patients at the roadside.

December 28 was Dr Weston’s last day working for GNAAS.

“GNAAS are an amazing organisation and I will seriously miss the comradery, teamwork, banter, clinical challenges and overall joy of flying around the Lake District in a helicopter,” Dr Weston said.

“It is an amazing privilege to do this as a job, but you cannot go on doing these things forever. I am 65 now and it is time to move on.”

Dr Weston qualified in 1982 from Charing Cross Medical School in London and spent the next year working as a junior medical doctor and junior surgical houseman in Canterbury and Hemel Hempstead.

He then completed a three-year training GP training scheme in Northampton before embarking on several medic-based expeditions to the Yukon, Kashmir, Greenland, Alaska, as well as sailing across the Atlantic on a 180ft square rigged sailing boat.

In 1992, he moved to Penrith where he started working as a GP. It was here that he developed his interest in pre-hospital medical care.

“Medicine runs in the family, and I am the fourth generation,” he said.

“My father was an A&E Consultant in Carlisle for many years. They tried to dissuade me from it, but I couldn’t think of anything else that I wanted to do.”

In 2013, he was awarded with an MBE for his services to emergency medical care.

He then received a Lifetime Achievement Award by BASICS National in November 2023 – both of which he described as two of the biggest highlights of his career.

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He added: “We don’t do this job for the accolades, but these awards were nice recognition of the work that I have done.

“It was nice because my wife and two daughters have had to put up with me dashing off in all hours of the day and night.”

Dr Watson recalled a couple of his life-saving stories from his career which he said he would always remember.

The first included saving the life of a 12-year-old boy who had been pulled out of the river at Appleby by an off-duty fireman after he had been under the water for 30 minutes.

Six years later, the boy thanked the doctor for performing the emergency procedures needed to save his life at a surprise leaving do organised by BEEP Doctors and GNAAS.

The other included saving the life of a young man who had become seriously injured after falling from Scafell Pike.

Dr Weston will continue to respond with the BEEP Doctors for the next year or two, but is looking forward to now winding down, travelling and spending more time with his family.

“I am not going to become a couch potato,” he joked. There are lots of irons in the fire and projects to do.”