Publish date: 13 June 2025
Over the last two decades Peter, who has worked at PHU since 2003, specialising in head and neck cancer surgery, has a long-standing interest in human factors and patient safety.
His interests have also enabled him to establish unique collaborations with airline pilots, National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team (Red Arrows).
Peter shared how he found out he had received an honour from His Majesty The King: “After being away for a few days, I came into work to find a letter on my desk with ‘On His Majesty’s Service’ Cabinet Office on the envelope. I could see the words ‘Ceremonial Officer’ and literally started shaking. When I read the letter, I was dumbfounded and overwhelmed.
“I’m literally blown away by the news and it’s the most extra-ordinary thing that has ever happened in my career.”
This latest honour is one of many recognitions that Peter has received for his work over the years. In 2022 Peter was awarded the Silver Scalpel Award – the highest accolade for training across all ten UK surgical specialties. In 2019 he was awarded a PhD for his research into applying human factors to improve patient safety.
Penny Emerit, Chief Executive of Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust and Isle of Wight NHS Trust said: “We are incredibly proud of Peter and the work he does not only here at Portsmouth but across the wider NHS. He thoroughly deserves this recognition for his commitment and dedication to improve patient safety and outcomes. Congratulations Peter.”
As a committed trainer and educator, Peter’s work focuses on improving practice across surgical and medical specialties, including reducing hierarchy, enhancing team working and raising awareness of personal factors to reduce medical error.
Peter is regularly invited to speak about his work across the country and abroad, where he also promotes equality and diversity in surgery, and shares his work on human factors. He now hopes that the latest honour will help push the importance of human factors across healthcare into the spotlight further.
Peter added, “I want the public to know that there are so many of us in healthcare as well as experts in patient safety and other disciplines, doing all we can to make the NHS safer. As humans we are all fallible and make errors and mistakes on a regular basis in both work and our personal lives. It is a ‘normal’ part of being human, and sadly error cannot be entirely prevented, but we can do things to minimise it. This has been the basis of my work over the last 15 years.
“I sincerely hope that this honour will help to further raise awareness and we will all find ways to be more proactive in leading culture change to improve patient safety still further.”