Former Arthur Rank Hospice chief executive Dr Lynn Morgan says she is ‘humbled’ by MBE in Queen’s Honours List
The former chief executive of Arthur Rank Hospice has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours for services to the community in Cambridgeshire.
Dr Lynn Morgan, 65, who lives in Cambridge, spent nine years as CEO at the hospice before retiring in March this year.
She told Cambridge Independent: “It’s a big surprise. I feel very humbled to be receiving it.
“I haven’t been able to tell anybody and my mother, Margaret Beavis, will be absolutely thrilled.”
During her time at the hospice, Dr Morgan saw Arthur Rank increase its number of employees from five to 200, and fundraise for, build and move to a new purpose-built £10.5million facility at Shelford Bottom, which was subsequently rated ‘outstanding’ by the CQC.
She said she shares the honour with the “fantastic team, the volunteers and supporters” who worked together on these achievements.
“I’m very aware that it was a team effort and we could not have achieved what we achieved without everybody pulling together and they are a fantastic team of staff, volunteers and supporters,” she said.
She continued: “We were also very fortunate in that we had a very forward-thinking set of trustees who believed in the vision and were happy to support us and take it through to fruition.
“I think the new hospice is wonderful and it's a real asset to the city and the wider Cambridgeshire area.
Before joining the hospice Dr Morgan spent four years as the director of business and enterprise at the East of England Development Agency.
But she doesn’t think anything else will give her the same sense of achievement as her time at Arthur Rank.
She explained: “I think in Cambridge sometimes we talk about a divide between town and gown but actually at the end of the life, the hospice has people from eminent academics to people who have worked as bedders in the university and to everybody across the whole of the society spectrum and everybody gets the same wonderful care.
“I think it’s something we should all be very proud.”
Dr Morgan, who has been married to husband Paul for 47 years and has two grown-up sons Charles and Rupert, was born in Cambridge and attended the Manor School for Girls.
“I lived here all my life, my family grew up here and I feel that Cambridge is a very special place,” she said. “We have a beautiful city, but it’s still very much the place in terms of the haves and have nots, there’s still a very wide divide.
“I think the work that all the charities do in Cambridge and Cambridgeshire is fantastic and of course, there are many demands on the funds and everybody is fundraising but without those funds we just wouldn’t have the funds we have in the area.”
Despite retiring from her role at the hospice, Dr Morgan is still actively involved in the Cambridgeshire community.
She is doing mentoring work, as well as working on a commission for health and social care reform in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
Read more
Arthur Rank Hospice given ‘outstanding’ CQC rating
Queen’s New Year’s Honours List 2020: All the Cambridgeshire people honoured
