King’s Birthday Honours for Guy’s and St Thomas’ staff

Four members of staff from Guy’s and St Thomas’ have been recognised in this year’s King’s birthday Honours list.

Professor Avey Bhatia, Chief Nurse; Professor Adam Fox, professor of paediatric allergy; Professor Anthony Dorling, now retired professor of transplant inflammation and repair; and Professor Caroline Ogilvie, recently retired consultant clinical scientist in genetics at the South East Genomics Laboratory Hub at Guy’s and St Thomas’, have all been given the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

Prof Avey Bhatia was recognised for her services to nursing and to the NHS. She returned to Guy’s and St Thomas’ as Chief Nurse in November 2020, having trained as a critical care nurse at St Thomas' at the beginning of her career.

Prof Bhatia qualified in 1991 and her clinical experience includes theatres, coronary care, and general and cardiothoracic intensive care nursing. Her first Chief Nurse role was at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells where she did her nurse training. She then became Chief Nurse at St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in February 2017. Prof Bhatia has a masters in public administration.

She is also President of the Florence Nightingale Foundation and honorary Vice President of The Nightingale Fellowship. She recently became Professor of Professional Practice at King’s College London.

Prof Bhatia said: “I am deeply honoured and humbled to receive this award. It is recognition that I share with colleagues who have supported my career, and also my family whose encouragement has been instrumental in enabling my role in the NHS.

"It has been an absolute privilege to have worked in the NHS as a nurse for the last 30 years, and this honour inspires me for the years ahead.”

Professor Adam Fox was given an OBE for his services to paediatric allergy. He is professor of paediatric allergy at Evelina London Children’s Hospital which is part of Guy’s and St Thomas’, and he is Chair of the National Allergy Strategy Group, currently leading the development of the National Allergy Strategy.

Prof Fox has held roles at Guy's and St Thomas' including clinical director for specialist ambulatory medicine, and commercial medical director for the Trust. In addition to his clinical work, he is also a professor of paediatric allergy at King's College London.

He chaired the UK Department of Health national care pathway for food allergy in childhood and was a member of the National Institute of Healthcare and Clinical Excellence (NICE) clinical guidelines development group for the assessment and diagnosis of food allergy in children. He was elected as President of the British Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in October 2018, the first paediatrician to be elected to this role. 

Prof Fox was the founding director of the King's College London Allergy Academy. He has also been a trustee of Allergy UK and chair of their Health Advisory Board.

Prof Fox said: “It’s a huge honour to receive this recognition. In truth, it reflects the huge progress that has been made in our speciality over the past few decades and the credit for this is owed to a great many dedicated clinicians, researchers, educators and patient advocates.

“It has been my privilege to work in many teams over the years who have contributed so much to this progress, and none more so than the amazing allergy teams at my NHS Trust and King’s College London. I also hope it can raise awareness of how much more we still have to do to help improve the lives of the many people who live with allergic disease.”

Two staff members who have recently retired were also honoured.

Professor Anthony Dorling, formerly professor of transplant inflammation and repair at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College London, was honoured for his services to kidney patient care.

He moved to Guy’s Hospital renal unit in 2009, from Imperial College London. His clinical and academic work focussed on kidney patients who were difficult to transplant because of antibodies, and on transplant patients with smouldering ‘chronic’ rejection. He was Chief Investigator of three innovative multi-centre UK clinical trials, RituxiCAN-C4, OuTSMART and GAMECHANgER. He retired in March 2024.

Prof Dorling said: “I am humbled and honoured to receive this award in recognition of my clinical and research work at Guy’s Hospital and King’s College London. Thanks to my colleagues and patients in both the renal unit and King’s College London, without whom my modest achievements would not have been possible."

Professor Caroline Ogilvie, now retired consultant clinical scientist in Genetics at the South East Genomics Laboratory Hub, Guy's and St Thomas', has been given an OBE for services to patients with genetic disorders.

Prof Ogilvie started working at Guy’s and St Thomas’ in 1990 as a healthcare scientist developing new techniques to improve diagnostic efficiency for patients. These techniques were introduced at the Trust, and subsequently across the country.

She was a founding member of the Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) Centre, which was the first NHS service of its kind in the country and which gives families the chance of having a child unaffected by familial disease.  During her career she had particular interests in chromosome disorders, autism and embryo development.

Prof Ogilvie said: “I’m astonished and humbled to have been given this honour, but delighted that the importance of genetics in reproductive and developmental disorders has been further recognised. I consider it a testament to the many colleagues with whom I have collaborated over the last 35 years, and am very grateful to them all.”