As the NHS approaches its own 70th birthday next month, the Queen’s Birthday Honours List was packed with awards for people who have made significant contributions to healthcare in the UK.
One in eight of the awards in this year’s Birthday Honours was made in the field of healthcare, with more than 60 awards made to NHS staff. They included long-serving, dedicated and trailblazing midwives, nurses, psychiatrists, GPs, volunteers and specialists.
The awards were made in recognition of providing outstanding patient care, for innovation and to a wide range of sectors such as nursing, mental health and emergency care. Seventy years after the passenger ship Windrush arrived in the UK, bringing the first wave of post-war West Indian immigrants, NHS England staff have also been recognised for their services to race equality throughout the health service.
Among the NHS staff receiving the highest honours in the Queen’s Birthday Honours were:
- Yvonne Coghill, Director of Workforce Race Equality Standard Implementation will receive a CBE, with Roger Kline, former Director of Workforce Race Equality Standard Research and Engagement, getting an OBE, both for their commitment to equality and diversity in the NHS.
- Professor Sue Hill, the NHS’s top scientist, has been awarded a damehood for services to the 100,000 Genomes Project and to NHS Genomic Medicine.
- Professor Neil Churchill, Director of Patient Experience for NHS England, has also been honoured for his dedication to carers and the voluntary sector with an OBE.
- Dr Nishma Manek, a trainee GP and NHS England clinical fellow who founded the Next Generation GP programme for emerging leaders, also receives a BEM.
Commenting on her damehood, the NHS’s Chief Scientific Officer for England, Professor Sue Hill, said: “I am both humbled and absolutely overjoyed to receive this award. Across my career I have had the privilege and honour of working with dedicated and committed healthcare professionals, patients and their families.
“This award is not so much about my individual contribution, but a recognition and celebration of our joint efforts to transfer innovation in science through to patient care, especially as we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the NHS.”
Reacting to her CBE, Yvonne Coghill, director of the Workforce Race Equality Standard at NHS England, said: “I feel honoured and humbled to be recognised for the work I love doing in an organisation that is the best in the world. However, without the dedicated, hardworking and fabulous people that I have had the pleasure to work with over many years, this would not have been possible.”
Sir Malcolm Grant, chairman of NHS England, added: “As we approach the NHS’s 70th birthday it is great to see the importance of health recognised so strongly in these awards and so many NHS staff deservedly honoured for the fantastic work that they do. With the anniversary of the Windrush’s arrival falling next week, it is also fitting to see contributions to equality and diversity in the health service recognised in this way.”
The NHS’s milestone birthday on July 5th will continue to celebrate the achievements of the NHS over the past seven decades and will be shining a light on the staff who are there to guide, support and care for patients every day.