Health Equality Award Winner

This year’s winner of the Health Equality Award has been working at Good Life Pharmacy for six years, and despite being only 21, pre-registration pharmacy technician Tegan Taylor has made a significant impact on her community. The winner of this award is someone who is focussed on tackling health inequalities for the patients and communities, finding tangible and effective solutions. Through her work with the traveller community in Tegan’s area, she has done just that.

Closing the gap

Tegan’s pharmacy has “the largest population of travellers in South Derbyshire,” said Lindsey Fairbrother, Tegan’s nominator and pharmacist at Good Life Pharmacy. Many people from within the traveller community are itinerant, as well as there being transient members of the community who visit from other traveller communities throughout the UK and find it difficult to access healthcare. “Tegan shows the local community can be diverse in their needs and adapting how we interact is a true healthcare hero,” commented RoE judge and head of healthcare capability at Boots UK, Richard Dunne. “Many of these people struggle with going to the doctor and making local appointments and come to us. Also, many of them struggle with reading and writing and don’t always understand the information leaflets in the medication packs,” said Tegan. Here, Tegan has played a crucial role in delivering healthcare to this community by taking the time to explain medications – especially when someone has multiple different pills or treatments – and making sure that prescription changes are understood. Often times, a family member will seek advice on behalf of someone in the traveller community, and Tegan says it is important that the information is clear so that it is passed on correctly.

“We also try and look out for the health of the people doing the caring within the traveller families, as often they need some attention themselves,” Tegan added. This further extension of care is another example Tegan has shown of expanding her healthcare service beyond what meets the eye.

Impacting health literacy

“Health literacy is a significant issue for many, and the traveller community are amongst those,” said Mike Holden, RoE judge and associate director of Pharmacy Complete. “Tegan is certainly a key member of the pharmacy team and will be able to apply her new skills as an ACT to be even more support in this excellent pharmacy.” Tegan has played an important role in improving the health literacy of the traveller community in Derbyshire, and through the outreach service where Tegan and her team provide health screening services, discuss vaccination options and sexual health services, she is crucially making healthcare more accessible – an area community pharmacy teams can make a real difference.

Nicola Stockmann, president of APTUK and RoE judge, wrote of Tegan’s entry: “To be a support to a community where literacy could be a barrier to access healthcare is a fantastic impact to reducing healthcare inequalities.”