NWAS gains recognition

The North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust awarded the Investors in People Good Practice Award in Health and Wellbeing

The North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NWAS) has recently been awarded the Investors in People Good Practice Award in Health and Wellbeing.

The award follows the Trust’s Investors in People Gold Award and recognises the significant investment the Trust has made in supporting the health and wellbeing of staff.

NWAS received this second award following an intense assessment process by Investors in People, which included interviewing staff, managers and union representatives across the Trust. A portfolio of evidence was also produced and an assessor attended the Staff Pledges group meeting to gain an awareness of the Trust’s Health and Wellbeing strategy and future action plans.

John Spitz, the IiP Assessor commented: “The Trust has an innovative and pro-active approach to the health and wellbeing of its staff which benefits both individual employees and the Trust.”

The Assessor highlighted areas of good practice adopted by NWAS and emphasised that the greatest strength of addressing health and wellbeing was the everyday practice applied by the Trust of a flexible approach based around the individual’s needs whilst still focusing on the organisation’s aims.

Michael Forrest Acting Director of HR and Organisational Development said: “We are delighted to have been successful in the assessment, over 60 individuals had the opportunity to talk to the assessor and spoke in glowing terms about the opportunities that are open to them within the Trust. However, we are always looking to improve and we will receive a list of action points from the assessment of areas we can look to further develop.

“The Trust has a long-standing commitment to health and wellbeing and aims to continue to embed this in the ethos of the organisation.”

A staff member was interviewed during the process commented: “I have never encountered any situations where we couldn’t access health and wellbeing activities. It is a very fair and open Trust, promoting health and wellbeing is one of our core values.”

The Trust has produced a handbook to ‘Health and Wellbeing’. This is a resource to help both managers and staff experiencing or dealin ith issues relating to stress, mental health, finances, domestic violence, child care, drug and alcohol abuse, g whealthy eating and stopping smoking. The handbook had been designed as a tool to locate information easily on all these areas.