Queen's Birthday Honours: Sheffield nurse awarded British Empire Medal for Covid work at Children's Hospital

Adele Hague, team leader for Sheffield Children’s 0-19 team, has been honoured for her dedicated work in the community and for her work setting up a testing service and vaccination clinics at the hospital during the pandemic.

Adele has worked at Sheffield Children’s for six years. Her normal role supports the coordination of healthcare for children and young people across the city. She is a key part of the 0-19 service, which helps ensure children are on track with their development and supports parents with the challenges of parenthood, including helping them to learn new skills.

In March 2020, Adele volunteered to help with the Covid-19 response. Adele trained as a Covid-19 tester, oversaw the admin team who running the testing service, organised the logistics of the testing service and personally swabbed more than 2,000 people. Later in the year Adele was also instrumental in launching the Covid-19 vaccination clinics, being part of the team and personally vaccinating hundreds of colleagues at Sheffield Children’s.

The testing service initially only covered those working at Sheffield Children’s and its patients, but the service was soon extended to cover city partners including the Clinical Commissioning Group, Primary Care, Sheffield City Council and Sheffield Health and Social Care Trust whilst they got set up. Adele’s involvement in this work meant these key workers could be swabbed promptly, and return to work more quickly if they had a negative test. This allowed critical services to continue safely in the community.

Adele said: “I am so humbled. I honestly can’t believe it, but I’m really amazed people nominated me for it as I was only doing my job! This award isn’t just for me, it represents the work of everyone in the community team, the Covid testing team and everyone who supported us, including my son who has really helped me in my role, especially during Covid. I am really honoured to receive this award and celebrate the work we’ve done!”

Adele also oversaw the recruitment of other 0-19 service nurses to the swabbing Covid service, trained them and supported them through the process.

Acting chief executive Ruth Brown, said: “I’m thrilled Adele has been awarded with this honour. On behalf of all colleagues at Sheffield Children’s, I’d like to thank Adele for the fantastic work she has done and say a big congratulations for this great honour. Her dedication and work ethic has been a huge benefit to the team at the Trust both before and during Covid, and we are so grateful for everything she has done to support our colleagues, patients and neighbouring organisations.

“Adele is role model for all of the 0-19 nurses who she has trained and supported through their change in roles during Covid as well as the colleagues she has supported through setting up of the Covid testing area. She has tackled everything with an outstanding can-do attitude, she puts the wellbeing of colleagues to the front of all decisions and worked over time to make sure the service suits both adults and children and has enabled others to do their job with confidence. Thank you, Adele!”