County residents and water group CEO receive Queen's Birthday Honours

People from Northumberland are among the latest group to receive royal recognition.
Heidi Mottram, chief executive of Northumbrian Water Group.Heidi Mottram, chief executive of Northumbrian Water Group.
Heidi Mottram, chief executive of Northumbrian Water Group.

They join famous names and national heroes on the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2018.

They include Professor David Jones, of Ingoe, who is the Dean of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) for trainees and he has three nationally-leading roles in research, NHS clinical service and training.

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He is also Professor of Liver Immunology at Newcastle University.

The 54-year-old is one of the UK’s leading researchers on liver disease and has combined basic research into the underlying causes of autoimmune liver disease with clinical studies that have had a direct impact on current care.

For the past 20 years, he has run the UK’s largest clinical service for autoimmune liver disease.

In the last year, Prof Jones has led a strategic change to clinical academic training through the NIHR system, with the aim of setting up an NIHR Academy – which is likely to benefit UK clinical research in the long run.

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He has been awarded an OBE for services to liver disease and training.

Kenneth Bremner, of Darras Hall, Ponteland, became chief executive of City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust in 2004 and became CEO of South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust in 2016.

He leads 8,500 staff at the two trusts, which have a combined turnover of £554million.

As part of the Path to Excellence Programme, he has helped shape the completion of state-of-the-art paediatric emergency departments, an integrated assessment centre at Sunderland Royal Hospital and a new specialist treatment centre in Durham.

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Mr Bremner has also been instrumental in the founding of a School of Nursing at the University of Sunderland in 2016.

He champions pharmaceutical sciences, for which he was recently awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the university.

The 57-year-old is a non-executive director of the Academic Health Science Network for the North East and North Cumbria. He is also chairman of the Sunderland Partnership Board.

He has been awarded a MBE for services to NHS Leadership.

Heidi Mottram, chief executive of Northumbrian Water Group (NWG), has been awarded a CBE for services to the water industry and business community.

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She joined the business in 2009 and has driven it to lead the way in customer service, environmental practice, innovation and social responsibility.

She has championed diversity in the industry, reforming her own executive leadership team to be 50-50 gender balanced and providing support, coaching and guidance to many women both in the industry and further afield.

As a result, in 2016 she was recognised nationally as one of the top 50 women in engineering.

Heidi’s strong environmental and social ethos has resulted in the business being recognised nationally and internationally for responsible business practice during her tenure as CEO.

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This includes achieving the Queen’s Award for Sustainable Development in 2014 and being named as one of the world’s most ethical companies for the last seven years by Ethisphere – the only water company on the world to be recognised on this global list alongside only five other UK companies.

Heidi also actively supports the local community, having implemented policies to enable NWG to donate one per cent of pre-tax profits every year to charitable causes, enabling 55 per cent of employees to volunteer in work time, and supporting approximately 1,500 community organisations each year.

In 2016, her work in the area of responsible business practice was recognised by HRH Prince of Wales when he made her his Business in the Community Ambassador for the North East.

This success has been sustained and the last few months has seen the business collecting many national awards for excellent performance.

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Heidi said: “I feel incredibly proud to receive this honour.

“I am very lucky to have the privilege to lead such a fantastic organisation and I hope this award also reflects the amazing work that our teams do to keep the water flowing for the customers and regions that we are proud to serve.”