It was celebrations all round as EMAS received two awards at the national Ambulance Leadership Forum (ALF) awards ceremony this week.
Jo Saunders, Divisional Administrator for Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire won the Administrative Support Award for her dedication to supporting our frontline services.
Mark Gregory, EMAS General Manager for Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire: “Jo has worked for the ambulance service for 20 years and amassed a huge understanding of how it works. She consistently goes above and beyond what is expected of her and works on her own initiative. She is a huge support to staff and acts as a problem solver, counsellor, resource manager and a shoulder to lean on. She works tirelessly without moan or question, always raises the mood of our staff and is hugely deserving of this national recognition.”
The second award was in recognition of excellence for promoting good practice around diversity and inclusion. It was presented to the team at EMAS for their ‘Serving your community’ recruitment campaign.
The campaign, which was funded by Health Education England East Midlands, aims to encourage local people, including those from Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities, to consider a career in the ambulance service allowing EMAS to better reflect the communities it services.
Melanie Wright, Deputy Director of Communications and Engagement at EMAS said: “Our thanks go to the frontline colleagues who put their face and name to this campaign to highlight the career options and progression routes available within the ambulance service.
“Other colleagues have embraced the campaign by becoming ambassadors, working with colleagues across the service to educate and engage with communities through events, media interviews and live shifts on social media. It’s still early days for our long-term campaign however initial figures show an 30% increase in frontline applications, demonstrating a positive start”.
Harminder Baines, Education Transformation Manager at HEEM said: “Health Education England have worked on Promoting Paramedic Diversity and have supported initiatives like the East Midlands Ambulance Service which is a fine example of the fantastic work our ambulance trust, universities and wider stakeholders are engaging with to promote the profession to ensure we have a workforce that is reflective of the communities it serves."
The EMAS careers website can be found at the EMAS Careers website including video testimonials from the frontline colleagues featured through the campaign. The site includes a link to the NHS Jobs website which advertises current vacancies.
