Scotland's Health Awards 2025: Inspiring NHS Fife support worker recalls 'teary' awards moment

The focus for the NHS Fife dietetic support worker is on empowering adults with these disorders through psycho-education and meal support. It rarely leaves the time for any thought of personal recognition for Ms Whittle, 37, from Buckhaven.

It is why it took being officially named as a finalist in the support worker category for last year’s Scotland's Health Awards 2024, hosted by The Scotsman, before the NHS employee even realised she was nominated at all.

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Ms Whittle, who won the award from a pool of six finalists, including fellow NHS Fife workers Tracy Cunningham and Kelly Ann McNeil, said she only found out she was in the final at a run-of-the-mill team meeting.

“I didn’t know until that point,” Ms Whittle said. “I was teary. It happened within a team meeting in the dietetic department and at the end they were saying that they’d put someone up for a nomination.

“I was getting ready to go out the door at the time thinking it was just somebody else. But I was like ‘I better listen’ and then when they said it was me, it was just like ‘aahhhh’.

“[I was] very shocked, but obviously so happy that people nominated me - obviously patients and colleagues. It’s heart-warming.”

Ms Whittle works in NHS Fife’s eating disorder advanced intervention team (EDAIT), which provides one-to-one interventions that also involves families and carers. Her phlebotomy skills, which involves collecting blood samples, are used to help with health monitoring and recovery efforts.

Interviewed off stage after accepting the award, Ms Whittle said it felt like she had won the honour for more than just herself.

“I feel like I’ve got it for the two teams I work for,” she said. “I’ve got it for dietetics and the eating disorder team ... it’s the team that this is for, it’s not just me.

“We all do really hard work and the team that I work for as well, obviously the dieticians, the nurses, everybody, they’re so inspiring.”

Nominations are now open across 17 award categories, which all aim to recognise frontline health and social care workers and celebrate those who work hard behind the scenes to make sure patients across the country get the highest level of care possible.

The Support Worker Award is for an individual involved in providing excellent NHS non-clinical support services for people in Scotland.

A support worker delivers hand on care, and also works behind the scenes to improve patient care. They could be an ancillary assistant, a domestic assistant, a catering assistant, a care-at-home worker or a porter - to name but a few.

Any nomination must be for an individual support worker who is providing care/services either working in an NHS department, a Health and Social Care Partnership or in a local authority environment, delivering integrated health and social care services. Teams and groups cannot be nominated for this award.

Other award categories include care for mental health, as well as awards for the doctor, nurse, top team, volunteers, young achiever, Allied Health Professional, midwife and leader of the year.

The awards ceremony and gala dinner will be held at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange on Thursday, November 6. Nominations are now open and can be submitted online at scotlandshealthawards.co.uk.