A professor and a community champion both recognised in King's Birthday Honours list

Elizabeth Sharon Draper (66), of Great Dalby, receives the MBE for her outstanding research work into improving the care for babies and children and during the COVID pandemic.

And there is a BEM for 75-year-old Wymeswold man, Peter Blount, who give much of his free time to support local groups and charitable causes.

The King’s Honours list was revealed this evening (Friday).

Ms Draper is an Emeritus Professor of Perinatal and Paediatric Epidemiology, at the University of Leicester.

She has saved lives through a lifetime devoted to improving the health and well-being of babies and children.

Her expertise includes the use of population data to improve quality of life following admission to neonatal care, identifying best practice for paediatric intensive care, and improving pregnancy outcomes through perinatal surveillance.Ms Draper’s pivotal involvement in national and international audits has changed the face of clinical care in the UK and saved lives by shining a light on improvements that are required in hospitals.

She led the successful planning and implementation of COVID rapid reporting data collection for paediatric intensive care units (PICU) in March 2020.

Thanks to her leadership, information was deployed and rapidly available in units soon after.

This led to the ability to model bed occupancy projections in PICU for winter surge planning later in the year, crucial to ensuring the NHS would not be overloaded.

Ms Draper is an investigator on a number of audits that are monitoring and providing insight into the effect of the COVID pandemic on pregnancy outcomes and the impact on neonatal and paediatric intensive care.

Among Mr Blount’s many activities, he is an enthusiastic member of the Lay Worship Leaders team and regularly arranges all-age and morning praise services at St Mary’s Church, Wymeswold.

He helps organise the annual ‘Duck Race’ course, he is the driving force behind the village’s annual Remembrance Day service and he is a governor at Wymeswold Primary School

Additionally, Mr Blount is also a volunteer for the East Midlands Ambulance Service as a Community First Responder and Scheme Coordinator, and he has volunteered a total of 3,000 hours and attended over 500 medical emergencies as a responder since 2015, on top of his duties as a coordinator.

Beyond this, he organises local CPR training for the village’s residents and designs interactive first aid sessions for the local primary school’s children.

Since 2016, he has been the volunteer Group Scout Leader for the 1st Wolds Scout Group.

He told the Melton Times: “I was both shocked and surprised to get the award.

"The voluntary ambulance service and the Scout groups are passions of mine and I just get on and do things.

"I do it quietly and I’m really surprised this has happened."

Originally from Lancashire, he moved to Wymeswold 18 years ago.

Peter added: “This is a lovely village, it’s a busy community and you just slot in. There are other people who should be getting this and not me.”