Dr Roy Sharma's public spirited response to the Covid pandemic earned him the NHS Hero award at the Review Community Heroes Thank You awards.

Like many other healthcare professionals, Dr Sharma came out of retirement to help meet the challenge of the pandemic

Presenting the award, Mayor of Lydney Cllr Natasha Saunders said she had a personal reason to be grateful to Dr Sharma.

She explained: "I was a vaccination nurse and we had no pharmacist one day. I rang Dr Sharma – he was walking the dog and he said he’d be there in a five minutes

"He ran the clinics for a few days while we had no pharmacist. We had hundreds of people. I want to say thank you but he was nominated by so many of you."

The NHS Hero award was sponsored by Friends of Lydney Hospital