A NURSE who received an MBE for going “beyond the call of duty” to help her patients has died.

Jane Phillips, who was 58, worked as a nurse and later as a district nurse at Chipping Norton Hospital for some 35 years.

She also helped set up the Lawrence Home Nursing Team, which cares for people with terminal illnesses.

Her husband, Stephen Phillips, 59, said she was deeply dedicated to her work.

He said: “She always wanted to be a nurse and look after people. That was her life.

“The people that she cared for thought she was the most wonderful person, but she took all that in her stride.

“As far as she was concerned, she was just doing her job.”

Mr Phillips said his family had received more than 100 cards from well-wishers paying tribute to his wife.

He said the family had many great times together, but said he would always remember fondly their holidays and the birth of their son, Danny, 21.

Mrs Phillips was born in Chipping Norton Hospital in 1953 and was brought up in Oddington, Gloucestershire.

She trained to become a nurse at Chipping Norton Hospital and went on to spend the majority of her working life there.

In 2005, she was given an MBE in the New Year’s Honours list for her work.

At the time, she said: “I feel very privileged but I do not really know why I have been given it, I have just been doing my job.”

Mrs Phillips married her husband in 1978.

Apart from helping others, her passion was for collecting tortoises, which Mr Phillips said she absolutely loved.

He said: “She had one when she was a child and we got one some time ago, and it progressed from there.

“I used to come home and realise we had got another one.”

Mrs Phillips died last Wednesday after battling cancer for four years.

The funeral service will be held today at St Mary’s Church in Chipping Norton from 11.30am.

The family has asked for donations to be made to The Lawrence Home Nursing Team.