Optician Awards: Shielding his patients

Paul Ratcliffe did not expect to be nominated for the Optician Awards’ Covid Heroes Award, ‘let alone win it.’

‘I was very surprised and humbled to have won,’ he says. The optometrist thought the awards night was ‘mostly nerve-racking’ as his category was one of the last to be announced. ‘I tend not to make a habit of needing to go on a stage in front of a room full of people,’ he says, adding: ‘It was of course, very gratifying to find that my efforts had been recognised by such a large audience and across the industry in general.’ Judges commended Ratcliffe for being ‘totally selfless, going above and beyond and a credit to the profession’.