Professor Kershaw was created Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1998 for services to nursing and nursing education.
Her international consultancy work for the Dept of Health included projects in Colombia and China on the modernization agenda for nursing, in Malta on the development of an EU curriculum of nursing, in Poland on Nursing Accession to the European community and for the commonwealth Office on Managed Migration.Other commitments to the Department of Health included their Leadership Project advising on how the program developed ethnic minority nurses for leadership positions.She is a fellow of the Royal College of Nursing, one of its former presidents and was once employed as their education adviser.
She was also St John Ambulance's chief nursing and social care officer.