MBE for Swansea Bay's Dr Martin Rolles in King's Birthday Honours List

Even though he was working thousands of miles away the congratulations still came thick and fast when news broke that Swansea Bay’s Dr Martin Rolles had been awarded the MBE.

Dr Rolles, consultant clinical oncologist at the South West Wales Cancer Centre at Singleton Hospital, received the award in the King’s Birthday Honours List for his services to healthcare science and cancer care.

“It really belongs to everyone I’ve worked with over the last 20 years in South Wales and to all the various committees I belong to,” he said.

“I’ve been really lucky to work with a fantastic bunch of people and what we have achieved, we have achieved as a team.

“We have brought cancer services in South West Wales up to national standards and European standards. There is still a long way to go but it’s a lovely place to work.”

Dr Rolles specialises in head and neck cancer and non-melanoma skin cancer. After studying zoology at the University of Bristol he read medicine at the University of Wales.

Following specialist training in Wessex and a radiotherapy fellowship at the Vancouver Cancer Centre, he returned to Wales in 2006 to take up a consultant post in Swansea.

Dr Rolles chairs the Welsh Health Sciences Committee, which provides independent medical scientific advice to Welsh Government.

He also chairs the Wales Cancer Network Clinical Reference Group, and the All-Wales Proton, and Molecular Radiotherapy Advisory Groups. He is vice chair of the Council of the Royal College of Radiologists.

He strongly believes the benefits of clinical research and is currently principal investigator in national trials for head and neck and skin cancer.

He has no idea who nominated him and the first he knew about his MBE was when he received a confidential letter from the Cabinet Office two months ago.

When the full list of recipients was announced, Dr Rolles was more than 5,000 miles away, teaching on a course in Kolkata in India.

The Cardiff FRCR Course is an independent, non-profit organisation run by consultant oncologists and senior trainees based at the South West Wales Cancer Centre and Velindre Cancer Centre.

Founded in 1986, it is dedicated to the education of oncology trainees preparing for the Royal College of Radiologists’ final FRCR clinical oncology examination, required to become a consultant.

The course launched in India in 2019 and four years later in Hong Kong. Dr Rolles has been on the course faculty since 2006 and closely involved with its continued development and international expansion.

“It’s hard work but good fun,” said Dr Rolles. “And we feel we are doing something really useful.”

But despite his being so far from home, there was no escaping the news of his MBE.

“One of the people who was in India with me found out about it and then informed everybody. I started receiving emails and texts while I was trying to teach,” he said. “And of course my mother has told every person in her address book.

“Being the centre of attention is slightly embarrassing but receiving the award is very nice. It has come as a massive surprise.”