Emergency services staff recognised in New Year Honours

Staff from across the emergency services celebrated the new year as the list of the 2024 honours was revealed.

King’s Medals

The King awards medals to police, fire and ambulance personnel. In an all-female listing for England and Wales, the recipients of the King’s Ambulance Service Medal were Vicki Brown from South Western Ambulance Service; Cathy-Anne Burchett from London Ambulance Service; Gail Herbert from Welsh Ambulance Service and Louise Walker from the Isle of Wight NHS Trust. A further KASM was awarded to Alistair MacDonald, Ambulance Care Assistant in the Scottish Ambulance Service.

In fire, the King’s Fire Service Medal was awarded to three Chief Fire Officers – London Commissioner, Andy Roe; Phil Garrigan from Merseyside and Dave Russel from neighbouring Manchester. A further two KFSMs went to Station Manager Sam Allison from Dorset and Wiltshire and Watch Commander Tom Torbitt from Northern Ireland. And in Scotland, the KFSM was awarded to Iain Morris, Acting Director of Asset Management and Watch Commander David Gibson.

The list for the King’s Police Medal is longer, with 21 recipients across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The list includes Deputy Chief Constable Ben Snuggs from Thames Valley Police and Assistant Chief Constable Jason Davies from South Wales Police. Owen Weatherill, former Assistant Chief Constable of Hertfordshire Constabulary and National Police Coordination Centre is also recognised in this year’s honours. The full list of recipients of the KPM can be found on the government’s website.

In Scotland, the King’s Police Medal was awarded to Chief Superintendents Carol McGuire and Faroque Hussain as well as PC Stephanie Rose.

New Year Honours

Firefighters, police officers and paramedics were recognised in the list of over 1000 recipients of 2024 New Year Honours.

Former long serving Chief Fire Officer for West Midlands Fire Service, Phil Loach was awarded an OBE. Other fire service honours recognised the work of firefighters working with the community – both whole time and on-call – as well as catering staff at the Fire Service College, and staff in fleet operations in Northumberland.

The list of 12 police New Year Honours includes one for former Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Martin Hewitt QPM who was honoured with a CBE. Tori Olphin is the Chief Data Scientist for Thames Valley Police, she received an MBE for services to technology in the public sector.

Pauline Howie OBE, formerly CEO of the Scottish Ambulance Service was awarded an CBE and Dr Fenella Leach, Chief Medical Officer and deputy chief of London Ambulance Service received an MBE. St John Ambulance staff received four honours and staff from Welsh Ambulance and East of England Ambulance services were also recognised.

NHS England published a full list of NHS staff to receive honours.

Recognising the broad reach of the emergency services, the list also includes staff working for mountain rescue, lowland rescue, RNLI, coastguard, and in water safety roles.

Photo credit: HM Government.