New Year’s Honours: Whitworth man receives MBE for services to vulnerable during Covid-19 response

A Whitworth man has been named in this year’s New Year’s honours list for his services to vulnerable people during the Covid-19 response, whilst celebrated actress Sheila Hancock has been made a Dame for her services to drama and charity.

Richard Sercombe, 48, of Whitworth, has received an MBE for his services to vulnerable people during the Covid-19 response.

Mr Sercombe, a data technologist at Brakes, has been at the heart of delivering the government scheme to provide 450,000 food parcels a week to clinically extremely vulnerable individuals during the Covid-19 crisis.

His role was to provide the underlying data flow that had the effect of ensuring this acutely vulnerable group never faced the decision to leave home or starve by providing emergency food within days.

Due to the reporting differences between NHS institutions, identifying individuals who were deemed extremely vulnerable was a difficult task, compounded by the pace at which the data was required.

Hundreds of thousands of lines of report data were supplied by government each day from which he, through his resilience and dedication, was able to manually create a workable delivery schedule. He achieved this by going the extra mile and spending many hours beyond his contracted hours to clean data, identify duplicate files and extract individuals’ names and addresses.

Mr Sercombe was personally responsible for the successful delivery of hundreds of thousands of parcels a week. The boxes have been described by recipients as a lifeline.

The New Year’s Honours List consists of local residents recognised by the Queen for their outstanding achievements across a range of services.

 

 

Dame Sheila Hancock, who has been appointed to the Order of the British Empire for her services to drama and charity. In February 2020, Sheila opened an extension at St Luke’s CE Primary School in Heywood as patron of DigiSmart educational apps for children.
 

Read more: Sheila Hancock catches up with Year 6 at St Luke's Primary SchoolPublished: 10 December 2020

 

Read more: Sheila Hancock launches new era for Heywood schoolPublished: 08 February 2020

John Robert Sleep, a VAT technical consultant from Rochdale, has also received an MBE for his services to tax compliance, whilst both Arnold Wilson Ashworth, of Rochdale, and chairman of Rossendale Harriers, Graham Wright, who is also a member of the Friends of Rooley Moor Road group, have received British Empire Medals.

Mr Ashworth received his BEM for voluntary and charitable services to the community in Whitworth, and Mr Wright’s was awarded for services to athletics and to the community in Rossendale.

Paul John Campion, of Middleton, has also received a BEM for services in the community to Middleton.

The honours list, published twice a year, consists of knights and dames, appointments to the Order of the British Empire and gallantry awards to servicemen and women, and civilians.

The ranks of appointment to the Order are Commander (CBE), Officer (OBE) and Member (MBE).

British Empire Medals are also awarded to community volunteers.