Outsourced service provider wins royal award for health training excellence

NRS Healthcare, a major outsourced assistive technology service provider to NHS organisations and local authorities, has been recognised for its outstanding learning in HRH The Princess Royal Training Awards.

The Learning and Skills Academy was one of 47 training programmes across the UK, with only eight of these coming from the healthcare industry.

City & Guilds awarded employers with training and skills programmes proven to have had a significant positive impact on their business or staff. NRS Healthcare was selected for excellence of its Health, Safety and Environment training, redeveloped in-house and RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) accredited.

David Straughan, Chief Operative Officer at NRS Healthcare, said: “Our employees work nationally and often remotely and in many different job roles. This new way of working has taken a few years of continual improvements but has been worth all the hard work, making our training packages easy to access, improved our overall employee engagement, their career opportunities and in turn has improved our service offering to our service users.”

NRS Healthcare provides community equipment, telecare, wheelchair and clinical services with a purpose-driven mission to support people’s quality of life and independence every day.

Learning is integral to those goals to deliver operational excellence, and to drive a culture of continuous improvement.

The online Learning and Skills Academy was established to support this vision and for accessible equitable learning opportunities for all.

Since being introduced in 2018, the academy has seen an increase in staff engagement from 32 percent to 91 percent and a rise in business-wide compliance rates to 91 percent.

All colleagues have access to bespoke learning pathways, professional development and compliance training 24/7.

Saera Mushtaq, Head of Organisation and Learning, introduced the academy alongside Training and Learning Lead Tom Lomax-Morgan.

Saera said: “We are so proud to be honoured with The Princess Royal Training Award in recognition of our dedication to learning excellence. Our roadmap to organisational excellence through acquiring, identifying, developing, and promoting talent is central to our success and our commitment to co-creating bespoke high-quality safety training, career pathways and inclusive talent programmes for our people help to drive a culture of competitive advantage.”

The Princess Royal Training Awards, now in its seventh year, continues to recognise organisations demonstrating exceptional commitment to learning and development. With skills shortages across the UK increasing and job vacancies doubling, the awards panel says creating engaging learning programmes to grow and retain new and existing talent has never been more crucial.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE, Chief Executive of City & Guilds, said: “According to our Great Jobs research report published earlier this year, we know that 15,000 job openings are expected in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry in the next five years.

“The Princess Royal Training Awards demonstrate how training and development can open up opportunities and attract new talent to industries with significant skills gaps, labour shortages and high demand for workers. Yet again, this year’s recipients have shown the range and depth of learning and development that is taking place in their own organisations to shape growth and positivity from the power of skills development to address these issues. We would like to congratulate this year’s recipients and look forward to celebrating with them later this year.”

All winners have been invited to a ceremony in December to be presented with their award.

Earlier this year, assistive technology prescribers had the chance to gain invaluable insights into NRS Healthcare’s equipment collection and cleaning processes, as the provider held a number of open days. Attendees to the open days found the experience beneficial.