End-of-life care nurse from Skegness awarded MBE in King's Birthday Honours List

Dr Diane Victoria Laverty has been recognised for her services to Palliative Care Nursing – having had a “profound impact” during her time as a Macmillan Nurse Consultant in end-of-life care for the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust (LAS).

With a nursing career spanning 40 years – she worked across both NHS and hospice sectors and played a vital role in advancing her profession and the services she works in. She has recently retired, and now lives in Skegness.

“I am truly flattered and honoured to be recognised in this way,” she said. “I've loved every role I have undertaken in my career and what has made it worthwhile is making a difference to patients and working with so many incredible colleagues.”

Dr Laverty has dedicated her career to supporting patients and their families, alongside supporting and developing her colleagues and advancing the palliative nursing profession through education.

A spokesperson for the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust said: “Her impact on patients and their families is profound. She has been an exemplary role model, educator and mentor to many nurses as well as trainee doctors and paramedics, promoting the integration and collaboration between nurses and multidisciplinary colleagues.”

Dr Laverty began working for the LAS in 2018 as a Macmillan Nurse Consultant in palliative and end-of-life care, the first of such role in any UK Ambulance Trust. The Trust said, at this time, end-of-life care was “a novel area of paramedic practice; yet to be fully embedded into education curriculums and not recognised as part of everyday practice”.

"Ambulance clinicians were not fully prepared or equipped to care for those at the end of life when a crisis occurred,” the LAS spokesperson explained. “Her expertise and leadership was vital to the success of a three year programme, enhancing clinical practice and patient outcomes across the whole of London. Dr Laverty led changes in clinical practice, educated clinicians and control room staff across this large emergency service workforce and collaborated with hospices to build a network of expert support for paramedics and ambulance clinicians to access.

“Her passion, determination, influence and credibility informed her robust advocacy for a paradigm shift in paramedics’ practice; moving from a traditional focus on critical care and lifesaving interventions to providing high quality, compassionate and comfort based care, enabling patients nearing their end of life dignity in the place of their choosing.”

Dr Laverty also helped drive improvement nationally, co-designing and co-authoring e-learning modules and national end-of-life care guidelines for ambulance clinicians.