Disability promotion award for ambulance chiefs
Ambulance bosses in the North East have been recognised for their efforts to promote the recruitment and development of disabled people.
The NorthEast Ambulance Service( NE AS) has retained its status as a Disability Confident Leader – having first received the accreditation in 2019.
NE AS chief executive Helen Ray said :“We want NE AS to be a great place to work, with a highly-skilled,healthy, engaged and motivated workforce delivering excellent patient care.
"To be reaccredited as a disability confident leader is a fantastic achievement and recognises the work we are doing to support disabled people.”
She added: “Disabled people make up a significant proportion of potential talent in the NorthEast and as an employer,we must do all we can to ensure we do not miss the opportunity to strengthen our workforce.
“By taking an organisationwide approach to embedding disability practice we can break down the barriers which for too long have held disabled people back and ensure everyone has the opportunity to succeed in life.”
To maintain the disability confident leader status, the Trust carried out a number of activities in order to attract and retain disabled employees.
This included offering a fully inclusive recruitment process, providing flexibility and reasonable adjustments at interview and appointment stages, ensuring employees have sufficient disability equality awareness training, and supporting health and mental well-being within the workforce.
The Disability Confident scheme has been running since 2016 and supports the Government’ s commitment to helping one million more disabled people into work.