AHA Link-2024-2 July-August - Flipbook - Page 8
CYMRU
Seeing the Awards from all angles
As Victoria Heath takes up her new role
as Chief Healthcare Science Officer for
Wales, she reflects on her involvement in the
Advancing Healthcare awards over the years,
and welcomes the return of AHA Cymru 2025.
In healthcare, it is vital that we look to
continuously improve our services by evaluating
our work so we can more effectively support both
staff and patients. Unfortunately, it can sometimes
feel as if we spend more time focusing on the
challenges and mistakes than reflecting on our
successes.
This is where events like the Advancing Healthcare
Awards shine as they give us the opportunity to
come together and share the best of our allied
health professionals and healthcare science
professions. For the last six years, I have had
the good fortune to be part of the Advancing
Healthcare Awards as a nominator, a judge and
even as a winner.
As a nominator I take a great sense of pride in
watching colleagues and friends be celebrated for
their work. In recent years I have made an effort to
champion those who have been quietly carrying
out great work but without receiving public
recognition for it.
As a judge I have had the pleasure of reading
through applications full of innovative practice and
discussing highly impactful projects with finalists.
It is a wonderful opportunity to spend the time
learning about the best practice that is happening
across the UK. The hardest part of the judging role
is to select a winner when you find that all of the
finalists are worthy of celebration.
As the winner of the 2023 Academy for Healthcare
Science award for Inspiring the healthcare science
workforce of the future, it is hard to put into words
what the award means to me. I had previously
won awards for science communication but this
was the first time that I had been recognised by
other healthcare scientists with an award for my
profession.
At the time I was in shock. The other finalist
was someone that I know well and am aware of
the high quality of their work. In comparison,
my projects to support healthcare scientists
in their transferrable skills by teaching them
to perform stand up comedy felt less serious
and transformative. But something in Katy’s
nomination must have convinced the judges
otherwise and the trophy still takes pride of place
on my desk. Moving forwards, winning the award
helped me to build my confidence to continue
supporting healthcare scientists with their
communication skills and encouraging them to
advocate for the profession.
In March 2025, after eighteen and a half years in the
NHS, I started my current role as Chief Healthcare
Science Officer for the Welsh Government. With a
background in immunology and microbiology, I
am registered with the Health and Care Professions
Council as both a biomedical scientist and a
clinical scientist. In this role I provide professional
leadership for the 7,000 healthcare science
professionals across Wales in addition to providing
advice on policy development in health sciences
and diagnostics.
In this role I have the opportunity to help
champion both AHPs and healthcare scientists
at events like the Advancing Healthcare Awards.
These are two professional groups that are
essential to patient care in the NHS but do not
receive the same level of public awareness as other
staffing groups and the Awards are a chance to
create that celebration of our work.
As Chief Healthcare Science Officer for Wales, I am
particularly excited to experience the Advancing
Healthcare Awards Cymru later in 2025. I am
certain it will be a fantastic event to showcase the
AHP and HCS services across Wales and I’m looking
forward to hearing about their work.
Victoria Heath
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