RETIRED health worker Ethel Armstrong received an MBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours for services to the NHS workforce and to retired people.

The 87-year-old, from Durham, was working as a cadet nurse on the day the NHS was established in July 1948.

She worked in various parts of the country mainly in radiography and radiotherapy and retired as tutor/adviser to the breast screening service in Liverpool in 1989.

John Rostill, chief executive of the NHS Retirement Fellowship, of which Mrs Armstrong has been a key part since she stopped work, said: “I can’t think of anyone more suitable to be honoured.”