The 2015 New Year Honours List recognised a number of people throughout the health and social care community, making up 7% of the total recipients.
Former Pfizer scientist Dr Simon Campbell (pictured right) was awarded a knighthood for his work as a leading member of the research teams that discovered several major drugs, including blood pressure treatments Cardura (doxazosin) and Norvasc (amlodipine besylate) and Viagra (sildenafil citrate) for erectile dysfunction.
Under his leadership, the Campaign for Chemistry boosted chemistry education in the UK while the Simon and Jill Campbell Foundation supports state school students studying science and maths at Cambridge and Birmingham.
Dr Campbell’s other achievements include serving as president of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Elsewhere Prof Carole Longson, director of the centre for health technology evaluation at NICE, was awarded an MBE for services to healthcare.
Her career includes spells at the pharma company GlaxoSmithKline, while she has also served on the scientific committee of the European Commission Innovative Medicines Initiative and on advisory groups to the World Health Organization (WHO).
| Health/life sciences recipients of knighthoods or damehoods |
| Dr Simon Campbell, former Pfizer scientist |
| Dr Anthony Sam Everington, OBE, Chair, NHS Tower Hamlets Clinical Commissioning Group |
| Andrew Valentine Morris, OBE, chief executive, Frimley Health NHS Westwood Foundation Trust |
| Nilesh Jayantilal Samani, DL, Professor of Cardiology, University of Leicester |
| Eileen Sills, CBE, Chief Nurse and Director of Patient Experience, Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust |
| Prof Norman Stanley Williams, Past President, Royal College of Surgeons of England |
| Recipients of Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire |
| Prof Sir John Irving Bell, FRS. |
Other honour recipients included Dr Anthony Sam Everington, chair of the NHS Tower Hamlets clinical commissioning group, who received a knighthood for services to primary care.
Dr Everington has worked as a GP in Tower Hamlets, the second most deprived London borough, for 20 years and has developed solutions to many problems facing the NHS. In Tower Hamlets, he pioneered the Bromley-by-Bow medical centre, which was designated a ‘Healthy Living Centre’ in 2000.
Commenting on his honour, Dr Everington said: “What a lovely surprise. I feel tremendously lucky to work with a wonderful group of partners and colleagues in the Bromley-by-Bow Centre, Tower Hamlets and nationally who are so inspirational and committed to delivering high quality healthcare to patients in the community.”
Seven nurses also received MBEs, including Deborah Louise Bone, a mental health nurse at Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust for services to children and young people and Matthew Hodson, a consultant nurse at Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust for services to respiratory care.