North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) has been named as number 21 in the country. This announcement comes just weeks after we won ‘Employer of the Year’ at the Lancashire and South Cumbria Health and Social Care Awards for a second time.

The Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers celebrates England’s outstanding apprenticeship employers, recognising their commitment to creating new apprenticeships, the diversity of their apprentices, and the number of apprentices who successfully achieve their apprenticeships.

Lisa Ward, Director of People: “We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved here at NWAS. Our apprenticeship programs are very important to us. They offer employment and training opportunities to people at all different stages of their careers. As a result, we are able to attract and benefit from staff from a host of different backgrounds. It also allows us to upskill, retrain and retain staff, which is very important to offer staff real career opportunities within the organisation.”

NWAS’s internal education team was recognised as part of the ranking. They deliver training for our apprentice emergency medical technician (EMT) positions, with more than 100 completing a 15-monthcourse every year and 85% achieving a grade of merit of higher.

It’s not all clinical opportunities either; people study externally for a number of different qualifications while employed here in finance, communications, project management, information and communication technology (ICT) and more. In all, 280 apprentices have begun their training with us, with people working in around 20 different roles.

First compiled in 2020, the prestigious annual employer rankings have been developed by the Department of Education, in partnership with High Fliers Research, who independently assess and rank the nation’s top apprenticeship employers.

Over the past three years, more than 1,000 apprenticeship employers from a wide range of industries and business sectors have entered the rankings. Today’s rankings were unveiled in a live broadcast featuring showcases of the employers in the ranking, including NWAS.