Roger Hill awarded honour from the Queen

Roger Hill, the former Chairman of Cambridgeshire Hearing Help, is to receive the British Empire Medal from the Queen in recognition of his work with the organisation which has supported thousands of deaf people over the years in Cambridgeshire.

Recently the charity merged with the Cambridgeshire Deaf Association to create an all-encompassing, go-to place for support for anyone with deafness or hearing loss in Cambridgeshire.

Roger first joined the charity as a volunteer in 2009 and came out of retirement to help run things during the recent pandemic. He says that he is humbled by the award;

“It is a great honour to receive the British Empire Medal in recognition of the wonderful work of the volunteers and staff of Cambridgeshire Hearing Help who maintained NHS hearing aids during the Covid pandemic. After having to close 42 community-based clinics at the beginning of lockdown our staff and volunteers opened a telephone/online battery replacement service followed by a number of remote Covid safe maintenance centres ,enabling our 6,500 isolated hearing-impaired elderly users across Cambridgeshire to stay connected throughout the pandemic.”

Andrew Palmer is the Chief Executive of the Cambridgeshire Deaf Association, which now encompasses Cambridgeshire Hearing Help.He says that Roger has played a very important part in the charity’s success and is pleased that he has been recognised by the Queen;

“I had the pleasure of working alongside Roger during Covid, in particular through the first lockdown when fear and uncertainty spread though vulnerable communities. Roger, a volunteer and chair of Hearing Help at the time, stepped up to lead the organisation through a very challenging time and ensure that people with hearing loss could continue to receive the support they needed to maintain their connections to the outside world, through their hearing aids. He took on a more than full-time job.

Many of the people we support had to shield at that time and the risks to mental health issues through isolation were very real. The importance of Roger’s work in ensuring people could keep their connections to friends and family via proper functioning hearing aids cannot be understated.

It is because of people like Roger that communities could be helped to stay safe, supported and informed through that difficult time and this honour is a fitting way to mark his dedication to the people of Cambridgeshire.”

The services that Cambridgeshire Deaf Association now offer have a key role to play in combatting isolation, improving health and giving equal access for older people with hearing loss. The CDA is now the one-stop shop for support for anyone with deafness or hearing loss in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.