FORMER Court Fields School, Wellington, student Wayne Darch has been awarded an MBE for ‘Services to the Emergency Services and Covid response’ and will be attending Windsor Castle tomorrow (Wednesday) for the investiture.

Wayne now lives in Frome with his wife Elizabeth and son Matthew. He joined the ambulance service in December, 1996, and has just completed his 25th year. He has held many roles and is currently the assistant director of Operations and an Ambulance Gold Commander.

During 2018 he was the Ambulance Gold Commander in charge of the South Western Ambulance Service response to the Novichok nerve agent poisonings in 2018 in Salisbury and Amesbury.

In 2020 he was the Gold Commander in charge of the services response to Covid-19 and has continued to lead the response since the start of the pandemic ‘supported by a great team around me’.

In December 2020 he was named in the Queens New Year’s Honours and awarded an MBE. He told the WWN: “I am extremely proud of my achievements and know that my family are too. I couldn’t do my job without their support or that of the fantastic people I work with across the South Western Ambulance Service.”