Birthday Honours 2018: Health workers honoured in NHS 70th year

Prof Sue Hill has been made a dame and Yvonne Coghill director of race equality at the NHS has been given a CBE

In the 70th year since the foundation of the NHS, health workers make up one in eight of people recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours list.

More than 60 awards have gone to people working in the NHS.

Professor Sue Hill, chief scientific officer for England, said she was "both humbled and absolutely overjoyed" to be made a dame for services to the 100,000 Genomes Project.

Midwives, nurses, psychiatrists, GPs and volunteers have also been honoured.

Prof Hill said: "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."

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The project aims to provide diagnoses of cancer and rare diseases by mapping the genomes of patients and their relatives.

Sir Malcolm Grant, chairman of NHS England said: "Sue is a driving force in keeping the NHS a world leader in genomic medicine and I'm delighted that she has been awarded this well-deserved honour."

He said it was "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".

And he added: "With the anniversary of the Windrush's arrival (bringing hundreds of workers from the West Indies to the UK in June 1948) falling next week it is also fitting to see contributions to equality and diversity in the health service recognised in this way."

Yvonne Coghill, director of workforce race equality, has been made a CBE and Roger Kline, former director of workforce race equality, an OBE, both for their commitment to equality and diversity in the NHS.

Ms Coghill 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."

Professor Jane Dacre, president of The Royal College of Physicians, has also been made a dame, while Prof Neil Churchill, director of patient experience for NHS England, has been appointed an OBE for his dedication to carers and the voluntary sector.

Dr Nishma Manek, a trainee GP and NHS England clinical fellow, who founded the Next Generation GP programme for emerging leaders, has been awarded the British Empire Medal.

Professor David Haslam, who chairs the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, has been knighted, as has Kings Fund chief executive Professor Chris Ham.

Among the nurses recognised is Kathryn Halford, who has been made an OBE after a 37-year career which saw her treat some of the UK's first Aids and HIV patients at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington in the early 1980s.

Kathryn Halford's 37-year career was recognised with an OBE

The mother-of-three, who is now chief nurse at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, also helped the victims of the 7/7 terror attack in 2005.

Meanwhile, Veronica Donovan, a consultant midwife at Birmingham Women and Children's NHS Foundation Trust has been made an OBE and palliative cancer care specialist Debra Smith, based at Wythenshawe Hospital, receives a British Empire Medal.