Sally Boa, currently on secondment to Strathcarron Hospice, scooped a top award at the Scottish Health Awards 2013 in recognition of her invaluable contribution to Scottish healthcare.

Sally – an NHS Forth Valley Speech and Language Therapist – was awarded the Innovation Award.  Sally has worked in close partnership with patients, staff, and an experienced group of applied healthcare researchers to develop an innovative, yet practical, research and theory-based intervention that improves the quality of life of terminally ill patients in the final days and weeks of their life at Strathcarron Hospice.

This intervention has been rigorously developed, implemented, and evaluated, and has exceeded expectations.  As a result the hospice has now developed a truly patient-centred agenda, which maintains safe and effective healthcare but places an emphasis on supporting patients to accomplish what is important to them in the final stages of their life.  This has resulted in significant improvements in the quality of care the patients receive and has enabled the hospice to fulfil its aim of supporting people to live their life to the full.

NHS Forth Valley Chief Executive Jane Grant said:

 I am delighted to hear that Sally from NHS Forth Valley is a winner and would like to offer my congratulations. These awards are a superb way of saying thank you to those who are always prepared to go the extra mile to help others. Successes like this not only recognise the care we give our patients but also act as an inspiration to colleagues throughout our organisation.”

NHS Forth Valley also had four other finalists in attendance at the awards – Dr Dan Beckett, Consultant Acute Physician/Speciality Lead for Acute Medicine, Senior Learning Disability Nurse Caroline Gill and her nursing team, Sister-Midwife Debbie Forbes and Alison Kilgour, founder of charity So Precious.

Every year, the Scottish Health Awards recognise and reward the dedicated NHS staff, support workers, volunteers and specialist teams who go the extra mile to provide outstanding patient care.

To view the full list of winners or for more information, please visit www.scottishhealthawards.com