Cheryl Anne Payne fought off fierce competition to be awarded Highly Commended in the Healthy Living Advisor category

A gentleman asking whether his medication was giving him side effects ending up with a triple heart bypass might sound like a story dreamt up by the writers of a TV medical drama, but it was all in a day’s work for Cheryl Payne. The medicines counter assistant who works at Avicenna Pharmacy in Bishopsworth, Bristol, received a Highly Commended in the fiercely competitive Healthy Living Advisor category, sponsored by Kellogg’s All Bran.

Cheryl started in pharmacy in a part-time role when she was looking to return to work once her children were less dependent on her. A decade on and she says: “I absolutely love it. I have lived in this area for my whole life and I know a lot of the people, so working in a pharmacy has enabled me to stay part of the community I have grown up in.”

She certainly makes a difference to the local population, performing blood pressure and diabetes checks, and providing weight management advice. The latter is tied in with the weight loss organisation Slimming World and has proved both popular and successful.

Cheryl is also a smoking cessation advisor, and uses her expertise to influence non-quit customers. She says: “I often do interventions with patients who come in asking for cough medicines or other products as smoking can cause any number of illnesses that customers may not think about.”

Nominated by pharmacist Mithum Makwana, Cheryl describes her success as “a shock – but a lovely one”. As well as regarding it as a personal triumph, she says it reflects the achievements of the team, commenting: “It is a joy to have a job where you still feel good when you come home and it is a huge boost to myself and the team to know that we are being acknowledged for our work.”