The Grand National 2021 is due to take place in April and last year the Jockey Club announced they would donate 10,000 tickets to NHS and social care workers in Merseyside.
But with the coronavirus pandemic continuing to put strain on health services, today The Jockey Club has announced the donation of 10,000 tickets will be honoured at the 2022 Randox Grand National Festival and Aintree Racecourse instead.
The organisers made the decision in order to avoid pulling vital resources from NHS services at such a crucial time.
That means a total of 10,000 tickets for the first day of the 2022 festival will now be donated to NHS workers, in recognition of their hard work and commitment during the pandemic.
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Dickon White, Regional Director of Jockey Club Racecourses North West, said: “Last year we donated 10,000 tickets for this year’s Randox Grand National Festival which we were delighted to do. However, I’m not sure any of us anticipated that we’d still be in the position we are currently in with the pandemic.
“We are fully committed to doing this so we think the sensible thing to do is to honour the donation and roll it forward to the 2022 Randox Grand National Festival. The last thing we would want to do is drain resource from an already overstretched NHS across Merseyside. We look forward to welcoming them in 2022 to show our appreciation for everything they’ve been doing for us.”
This year’s festival, which is scheduled to take place from April 8-10, will still honour NHS workers, with the first day of the event being renamed as ‘Liverpool’s NHS Day’, to pay tribute to staff and volunteers across Merseyside.
Dickon continued: “We’re delighted to continue to rename the first day of the festival, Liverpool’s NHS Day, as a small way to show our gratitude. In addition to this, we will be working closely with our friends in the NHS to provide a special thank you at this year’s event to a few people who have gone above and beyond in the community in these difficult times.”
Jan Ledward, Chief Officer at NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), the organisation which plans NHS care for the city, added: “We fully support The Jockey Club’s move to reallocate the kind ticket donation from this year’s event to 2022. We wouldn’t want to pull any resource from our hardworking teams at this current time but are delighted that the enormous effort from our dedicated people across local health and care will still be recognised next year – it’s a fantastic gesture.
“Staff are working tirelessly to keep services running and give people the care they need, often in the face of significant challenges. Whether in GP practices, hospitals, community and mental health services, care homes, social care – or the many other areas that make up our local system – teams are showing incredible resilience and dedication.”
The ticket process and distribution process will commence in January 2022 and further details will follow at the end of 2021.
