NHS Fife healthcare heroes were celebrated at this year’s Scottish Health Awards 2023.

Dr Joanna Bowden was named the winner of the Doctor Award for providing an exemplary contribution to NHS Scotland.

And the Global Citizenship Award went to Dr Andrew Blaikie for his work in informing policy and strategies to combat blindness.

Joanna led the redesign and modernisation of palliative care services to provide a community outreach specialist palliative care service in addition to a hospice care through a seven-day-a-week model.

She was described as championing the voice of people throughout the redesign to ensure lived experience guided the work, contributing to clinical evidence and leading a research study along the way.

Through his ground-breaking work, Andrew has empowered primary healthcare workers in impoverished settings by devising interactive eye care workshops and launching an innovative, solar-powered, ultra-low-cost diagnostic tool with more than 35,000 distributed to over 100 countries.

Andrew also contributed to policy change to improve clinical practice across the globe.

Run NHS Scotland, the Scottish Government and the Daily Record, the annual awards celebrate the NHS staff, support workers, volunteers and specialist teams who go above and beyond to provide exceptional care and support to patients and their families.

Patients, families, work colleagues and members of the public were invited to nominate a local hero across one of the 16 award categories with over 900 nominations and 51 finalists named.

The winners were named at an awards ceremony at the O2 Academy, Edinburgh.