Finalists announced – Dame Mary Perkins Award for Outstanding Patient Care

13 August 2021

We’re excited to announce ten Australian and three New Zealand finalists for the Specsavers 2021 inaugural Dame Mary Perkins Medal for Outstanding Patient Care. 

While the Specsavers Doug Perkins Medal recognises consistently high standards of clinical excellence for Partners and their teams, the Dame Mary Perkins Medal recognises exceptional acts of patient care in 2021 — going above and beyond in one or more of the following categories:

  • customer service
  • clinical care
  • clinical leadership
  • or teamwork to benefit patient care

Unlike the Doug Perkins Medal, based on clinical data, the Dame Mary Perkins Medal considers nominations within the Specsavers network. Individuals, team’s or stores are eligible, including retail and optometry team members, as well as Partners.

The finalists are:

We’ve seen some wonderful care stories from the nominations received including being selfless and giving back to hard-to-reach communities through outreach programs to going above and beyond and driving a patient to hospital for an emergency procedure.

The judging panel for our very own Specsavers Dame Mary Perkins Medal nominations consisted of external stakeholders, peer consensus and Specsavers Support Staff, including Cindy Nguyen. The judging panel for Australia was Christina Pizzuto (Optometry Partner, Broadmeadows), Taryn Black (National Program Director, Diabetes Australia) and Cindy Nguyen. For New Zealand – Helen Haslett (Optometry Partner, Masterton), Lesley Springall (Publisher and Editor, NZ Optics) and Cindy Nguyen.

Two winners (AUS and NZ) will be announced by Dame Mary Perkins at SCC in Brisbane on September 15.

Congratulations to all the 2021 finalists. Best of luck at the award ceremony!