From presidents to volunteers, the birthday honours list saw several individuals rewarded for their dedication to improving hospice care in the UK and beyond.
Hospice New Zealand has congratulated Professor Rod MacLeod after he was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to hospice and palliative care.
Rod is currently the Senior Staff Specialist in Palliative Care at HammondCare Greenwich and Naringah Hospitals in Sydney. He has held a variety of roles within hospices, including a nine year spell as medical director at Mary Potter Hospice in Wellington.
He has also served on many advisory or steering groups involved with Asia Pacific Hospice Network, Ministry of Health Palliative Care Advisory Group and the Palliative Care Council Needs Assessment Advisory Group.
66-year-old Derek Haines becomes an MBE for services to community services and sport in the Cayman Islands. Derek is a former superintendent with Leicestershire Police and detective chief superintendent with the Royal Cayman Islands Police.
In 2014, Derek took on six marathons around the world over the course of 8 months, as he sought to raise money for Cayman Hospice Care. So far he has raised well over $1 million for the charity as it looks to build an inpatient unit on the Islands.
In the UK, Moira Rennie, co-president of Rennie Grove Hospice Care which provides hospice at home care in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, has received an MBE for services to patients with life limiting illnesses. Moira’s husband, Iain, was the first patient of the charity that became Iain Rennie Hospice at Home, which merged with St Albans-based Grove House in 2011 to become Rennie Grove.
Having played a key role in the creation of the charity, Moira maintained a close association with Iain Rennie Hospice at Home and Rennie Grove Hospice Care over the past 30 years.
“This Award pays tribute to the vision, nursing expertise and wonderful support given over the past 30 years to over 14,000 patients and their families in the Chilterns,” she told the charity’s website. “I am so overwhelmed but also very pleased to accept this on behalf of the Iain Rennie Hospice at Home nurses, staff and volunteers.”
A volunteer at Saint Catherine’s hospice in North Yorkshire has also received an MBE: Shirley Franklin, 90, has been volunteering in the charity’s Driffield shop for nearly 25 years.
Shirley was delighted to accept the award and dedicated it to her fellow volunteers.
“I’m so pleased to be honoured in this way for something I really love doing,” she explained on the Saint Catherine’s website. “It seems such a shame that everyone else who helps the hospice can’t have an award, too. I feel that it’s for everybody and I’d like to feel I share it with all the rest of the volunteers.”
MBEs have also been awarded to Dr Gari Purcell-Jones, chairman of Jersey Hospice Care, and to Jo Boyd, the director of Les Bourgs Hospice in Guernsey. Gari told ITV News that he had been in a state of “delighted shock” while Jo said that she was “thrilled” to have been recognised.
Jeremy Hobbs, meanwhile, has been awarded a British Empire Medal for services to charity especially Compton Hospice in Wolvherhampton.
The actor Martin Clunes, who stars in Doc Martin and is a patron of Julia’s House Children’s Hospice, has received an OBE for services to drama and charity.
Congratulating those recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, David Praill, chief executive of Hospice UK, said: “It is wonderful to see such a range of people – who have tirelessly supported the hospice sector and its work caring for terminally ill people and their families – receive this recognition for their hard work.”
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