King recognises the service of two CSP members

Penny Broomhead - MBE

Penny, who is a retired clinical specialist in amputee and prosthetic rehabilitation, now volunteers as an international World Para Athletics classifier and as a national classifier for UK Athletics, and she was recognised by the King for her services to international disability sport.

Speaking about receiving her MBE, she said: ‘I have been so lucky! For almost 30 years, I have had a front-row seat to watch the development of sport for people with disabilities from grass roots to Paralympic level. 

‘In the voluntary role as a classifier, I have literally been around the world, classified in six continents and met some amazing people. In that time, I have worked with several sports as they developed para competition - including Triathlon, Cricket and currently Rugby League - initiating a classification system and training classifiers. 

‘Just about every sport uses classification to make competition fairer, for example men’s and women’s, and junior and senior events; but Para-sport also uses impairment; physical, visual or intellectual.  

‘By grouping competitors by the level of their impairment, its impact on the outcome of the competition is minimised. As a physio I classify athletes with physical impairment.

Penny, who lives in Leicester, recently attended an investiture ceremony to receive her award at Buckingham Palace.  

‘The ceremony took place in the Throne room, and we assembled in the picture gallery,’ she said.

It was a very special day, but I am also very aware of other people who have worked for many years to enable Para sport to flourish, and I hope I represent them, especially the classifiers who are so important to para sport

‘The Princess Royal gave the awards, and I was so impressed when the first thing she said to me was: “You are a classifier, that can be difficult, can’t it?”.  Not only was she very well briefed, but she also understood some of the issues with classification.’

Penny qualified in 1980 from the Nottingham School of Physiotherapy and was also a founder member of the CSP professional network BACPAR (The British Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in limb Absence Rehabilitation).

She has been an executive committee member of the network for 25 years and led the working party that developed the first evidence based clinical guidelines for the physiotherapy management of adults with lower limb prostheses, which were adopted by both the CSP and the International Red Cross.

This year, Penny has been appointed to classify at both the 2025 Asian Youth Para Games in Tashkent and this year’s World Para Athletics Women's Grand Prix - Czech Open.

Elspeth Robinson - MBE

Elspeth Robinson, who is the founder, chair and fundraiser for the Kumi Community Foundation, a registered charity, received an MBE from the King in recognition of her services to disabled people in Kumi, in Eastern Uganda.

Elspeth studied for a diploma in physiotherapy in the early 1960s, which was later converted to degree status at St Thomas' Hospital, London, and after working as a physiotherapist for almost 40 years, she founded the Kumi Community Foundation 23 years ago.

‘In 2002, after retirement as a physiotherapist, I read an article in Frontline magazine about Kumi Hospital, an old leprosy centre in eastern Uganda and now a general hospital, asking for volunteers so I replied and soon arrived into an unknown world,’ she recalls.

Her volunteer work at the hospital inspired her to set up the Kumi Community Foundation, a registered charity with UK Trustees and a local team involved with helping families with children with disabilities who live in extreme poverty in the remote rural areas in Kumi.

She says:

I started by treating a few children with disabilities in the hospital rehab department and, gradually, we developed a programme based in the rural community for families living in extreme poverty and with disabilities and/or malnourishment

‘Our Mission is to "Help Others to Help Themselves" and to give the extremely poor who are living with a disability in the bush a chance in life.’

Fieldwork and fundraising 

Elspeth visits Kumi on a regular basis, to offer in-person support to individuals in remote areas of the Ugandan bush. And when she’s back in the UK, she spends time fundraising for the programme.

The charity works closely with other organisations such as Physionet, Dentaid, Farmers Overseas Action Group (FOAG) and also refers children with disabilities to Kumi Hospital where they are assessed for surgery, rehab, provision of orthotics and LL prostheses and malnutrition. 

Additionally, the charity supports the hospital’s Nutrition Unit with monthly payments to provide protein foods and dried milk for malnourished babies and children.

‘Fieldwork in the bush is where our local and UK team members have home visits, hold clinics and follow up our clients,’ Elspeth explains.

‘Local volunteer "mobilisers" identify families and refer them to our CBR workers. We use a holistic approach in our assessments of the children with disabilities and their families. These people live in extreme poverty and cannot consider financing medical care. 

‘We provide income-generating projects, for example by giving the child with a disability a goat to rear and then, when it multiplies, they can be bartered for a cow which can provide milk for the family with the excess being sold to provide an income.’

An active and fulfilling retirement 

Commenting on how it felt to receive her award, Elspeth said: ‘I'm absolutely delighted but humbled to have been honoured with an MBE which I had never considered that I deserved. My Ugandan family are as much part of my life as my English family.

‘I started my employment in St John of God Hospital in Scorton North Yorkshire in 1970 and worked single-handed at first and then ended up as a physiotherapy manager until 2003, when I also ran an accredited private practice in my latter years.’

Elspeth originally lived near the first hospital where she worked, in the small village of Bolton-on-Swale in North Yorkshire, before she moved to Darlington in Co Durham, where she now resides.

As well as her work with the Kumi community Foundation, she is also a member of a number of CSP interest groups: Soroptimist International, ADAPT and the CSP Retirement Association, as well as AIC (International Association of Charities) and the National Association of Official Prison Visitors. She is also a member of Human Writes, ‘and I write to a prisoner on Death Row in Louisiana, USA’ she adds.

In her spare time, she also plays Bingo with young adults with learning disabilities in a day centre and is an active member of her parish community.

Elspeth said:

My retirement years have proved to be a very fulfilling era in my latter years, and I have achieved many of my lifelong ambitions one of which was to work with leprosy sufferers and to "Help Others to Help Themselves", which is Kumi Community Foundation's mission.