People from across Suffolk have been honoured in The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Birthday Honours list which has been published to mark the start of the long holiday period.

The Suffolk list is headed by England's Chief Nursing Officer Ruth May who becomes a Dame.

During the pandemic Dame Ruth became one of the semi-regular government experts who appeared at Downing Street press conferences as the scale of the crisis developed.

She lives at Nayland and held several health management jobs in Essex before taking up national NHS roles. In 2016 she was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Suffolk.

Zoe Billingham, the chair of the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, who lives at Aldeburgh, is made a CBE for public service.

She has been an Inspector of Constabulary and Fire Services and is also heading up the review boards that look at police salaries.

Ms Billingham became chair of the under-fire NHS Trust, which provides mental health services in the two counties at the start of the year following many problems - in April it was branded the worst Trust in Britain as the Care Quality Commission rated it as 'inadequate' following an inspection.

Ms Billingham has pledged to work to improve the Trust.

A CBE has also been awarded to Tim Coulson, the chief executive of the Unity Schools Partnership, an academy trust that runs 30 schools across the South and East of England - including several in Suffolk.

Charlotte Young, a trustee of the School of Social Entrepreneurs, becomes an OBE in recognition of her work for social enterprises. She lives near Woodbridge.


A former chair of the trustees, she had a career in management training and is a former Dean at the University of Westminster.

Daniel Hardiman-McCartney of Newmarket is awarded the MBE for services to optometry after he worked during the pandemic to help safeguard the profession.

A clinical advisor at the College of Optometrists, he worked to create conditions for the profession to carry on working and ease the pressure on hospital services.

Patrick Peal recently retired as chief executive of the East Anglian Air Ambulance and during his term of office, he helped boost its fundraising efforts. He is awarded the MBE for services to emergency care.

He helped set up the EAAA in 2000, starting with one helicopter, pilot and paramedic operating one day a week out of Norwich Airport.

By 2020 it was operating around the clock every day, with a helicopter available every day from 7am to 1.30am supported by ground-based staff.

The longest-serving member of staff at USAF Mildenhall has been awarded an MBE to honour her 63 years at the base.

Faith Rutterford started working at the air base in April 1959 as a teenager. Now 80 years old, she is still working four days a week as Secretary to the Commander, 100th Civil Engineer Squadron at the base.

Miss Rutterford joined the base just as the USAF completed its takeover from the RAF and has seen many changes in more than six decades since she started work as a clerical assistant in the air installations office.

When she is not at work she is secretary/treasurer to the Baptist church in her home village of Barton Mills, a short way from the airbase.

Suffolk Libraries chair Tony Brown, from Beccles, is awarded a British Empire Medal for services to the library service.

He was a director at the University of East Anglia and worked in creative industries before becoming involved in the campaign to support Beccles Library in the early years of the century.

He then became involved in the campaign to save all the county's libraries when the service came under threat - and ended up taking the chair of the organisation that has seen the libraries flourish over the last decade.

A BEM has also been awarded to Ipswich Hospital-based specialist nurse Libby Gray from Felixstowe.

She has been given the award for services to nursing in Suffolk - and it comes shortly after she was presented with a Nursing Gold Medal Award by chief nurse Dame Ruth May.