LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II has awarded the U.K.’s highest civilian award for gallantry to the National Health Service, offering a handwritten message of thanks to the organization and its workers on its 73rd anniversary. In a message written on Windsor Castle stationery, the monarch said it gave her great pleasure to give the award from a grateful nation. NHS staff have been lauded throughout the COVID-19 pandemic for working tirelessly to save lives and vaccinate the public amid an outbreak that has killed more than 128,000 people, the most in Europe. The George Cross was created by the queen’s father, King George VI, in 1940 to honor “acts of the greatest heroism or of the most courage in circumstances of extreme danger.”
