A charity Healthcare Assistant who has supported veterans for almost 40 years has been awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in The Queen’s New Year’s Honours List 2021.

Emrys Owen, Lead Healthcare Assistant at Royal Star & Garter, received his award for services to veterans during Covid-19.

Emrys has been with the charity, which provides loving, compassionate care for veterans and their partners living with disability or dementia, since 1982. Originally working in the charity’s former Richmond Home, he was there to support the residents’ move to the award-winning care home in Surbiton in 2013.

Emrys was thrilled to find out he’d been given the award. He said: “I’m highly delighted that someone like me could receive such an award! It’s mostly the people I have looked after over the years, the stories I have heard and the characters that I have met that makes the job so worthwhile. I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else,it’s an amazing organisation to work for.”

Andy Cole, the charity’s Chief Executive, thanked him for his many years of service to the charity’s residents: “I’m delighted that Emrys’ dedication and hard work in support of the nation’s veterans has been acknowledged. Emrys has embodied the very best of Royal Star & Garter’s values throughout his four decades at the charity. We are one big family at Royal Star & Garter, and I have no doubt that all the staff, residents and volunteers will be enormously proud of Emrys’ hugely well-deserved recognition.”

The Queen’s New Year’s Honours List 2021 was published in the London Gazette on Wednesday 30 December.