MARGRET Price, former chairman of the Dyfed Powys Health Authority and the current chairman of the Carmarthenshire NHS Trust, has received an OBE in the Queens Birthday Honours List.

Mrs Price, who runs an educational consultancy business from her home at Axton Hill, Pembroke, is delighted with her award, for her services to the National Health Service.

My involvement in the health service has been addictive, there have been a lot of rewards, she said.

Margret Price was educated at Pembroke Grammar School and later read geography at Oxford University. Her father, John Dean, farmed Crickmarren Farm, Hundleton.

Her association with the health service began in 1990 when she become a member of the South East Hampshire Health Authority.

Three years later she was appointed chairman of the Portsmouth NHS Trust.

When her husband, Jim, retired from IBM they returned to Pembrokeshire. Mrs Price was keen to maintain her input into the health service and was appointed chairman of the Dyfed Powys Health Authority.

She admits the Authority was under extreme pressure from funding constraints when she first joined. It was forever being castigated, she said. People within the authority worked extremely hard to turn it around and deserve a lot of merit for making it the success it is today.

Although her term of office was not due to end until next March she recently stepped down to become chairman of the Carmarthenshire NHS Trust.

Mrs Prices work as an educational consultant involves supporting families relocating internationally.

She and her husband have three sons, Matthew, Benedict and Nathaniel, and six grandchildren.