In 2007, Kelly-Marie Ball started her career in pharmacy as a delivery driver. Less than a decade later, she has scooped not one, but two Training Matters Recognition of Excellence gongs: Healthy Living Advisor and Team Leader 2016

While Kelly-Marie is bewildered by her success – her first words upon hearing the news were “I can’t believe it!” – it is safe to say that nobody else is. Despite only starting at her current workplace in 2015, her passion and dedication for the job shone through so unequivocally that her new colleagues at Priory Pharmacy in Dudley, West Midlands, unanimously voted for her to be appointed to the newly created position of team leader, which she added to her existing responsibilities as a dispensing assistant and healthy living champion.

Part of Kelly-Marie’s skill lies not just in being able to identify opportunities for health promotion and relationship building with patients and the wider community – as wonderfully illustrated by the carol singing she organised for staff to perform outside the pharmacy last Christmas – but also in her persuasiveness, which her manager, who ended up singing a solo number at the event, testifies to. Kelly-Marie excels, as Awards judge and retail head at Scotland’s Right Medicine Pharmacy chain Richard Stephenson said, at “thinking outside the box”. A prime example of this being her involvement in the pharmacy’s “Safe Place Scheme” whereby vulnerable people can drop in at any time for help, advice or even just a cup of tea.

Kelly-Marie is not shy in getting out of the pharmacy to promote services, and she has a weekly slot at the local children’s centre where she raises awareness among parents and carers of schemes such as milk vouchers, healthy start vitamins and minor ailments services. She also goes into a local college on a weekly basis to provide advice on topics such as quitting smoking, and regularly visits other locations – fire stations, libraries, educational establishments, to name just a few – to improve the public’s understanding of issues such as alcohol misuse and sexual health problems.

The judges have not been the only ones to shower praise on Kelly-Marie, as the accolades start a little closer to home with her colleagues nicknaming her “the sunshine of the pharmacy”. Indeed, it was pharmacy manager Olutayo Arikawe who encouraged Kelly- Marie to put herself forward for the Awards, pointing out just how much she has achieved in a short space of time.

So, after being crowned the winner of the Healthy Living Advisor and Team Leader Awards, sponsored by Kellogg’s All-Bran and Numark respectively, what’s next? Kelly-Marie says: “Priory Pharmacy is not-for-profit, which means we can concentrate on providing services that make a difference to people’s lives. We want people to see what we can do for them, so have some coffee mornings and open sessions so anyone can just drop in.” She would love to pass on the confidence she has gained from winning into mentoring the rest of the staff so they have enough self-belief to get out and about as well, holding herself up as a role model.