There are places in this job that become regular haunts for us ambulance lot. Often they are places that you wouldn't want to be in, the worse types of estates, the hostels full of drug users, the crack houses.

There is one place that lets me feel a little happy to be going there - just so long as it's for nothing too serious.

We have a borough special needs school on our patch and it's a lovely place. It's always clean and cheerful and colourful. The children all seem happy and, strangely for a school, so do the staff.

Some of the children there are regular customers of ours, normally because they are epileptic and while the staff can easily cope with a simple seizure, sometimes the child has more than one and so needs more medical assistance than the staff can provide.

Unlike some of the nursing homes that I go to the staff member that accompanies the child in the ambulance always knows them, and they will spend the journey trying their best to comfort the child - a far cry from the 'nurse' who neither knows the patient or does anything but sit motionless in the passenger seat.

We went there today, a new child with severe problems - the staff who came with us talked to the child all the way into the hospital and gently stroked his hair. You can see how much the staff care for even those children they are yet to know well.

And it's unforced, it just comes naturally to the staff. I've seen it in some nursing homes, where the care of people is as important as the job itself. The staff walk around with smiles on their faces and we often have friendly chats with them.

So I come away happy, knowing that out there, in little pockets, there are people who really do care for others, who don't tick boxes and count pay-cheques.

And I'm glad that I've never had to go to anything too serious there.