East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) and the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST) have joined forces to give 40 new recruits the chance to train as life-saving blue light staff.
ESNEFT has gifted EEAST nearly £1 million of unused apprenticeship levy in a landmark agreement which will span the next four years. The money will fund apprenticeships for 30 paramedics and 10 associate ambulance practitioners, who work as part of a team to assess, treat and manage patients.
The new recruits will complete their classroom training while gaining practical experience on the road with EEAST’s crews. Wherever possible, they will be based in east Suffolk and north Essex, in turn helping EEAST to reach patients more quickly.
Dr Shane Gordon, ESNEFT’s Director of Strategy, Research and Innovation, said: “We are delighted that we have been able to support our NHS partners at EEAST with this funding. We hope that these additional staff will help to save lives by improving the response our blue light colleagues are able to provide to patients.
“We have an ambitious apprenticeship programme in place at ESNEFT, and will be welcoming our own new recruits over the coming months. However, we are still keen to for the local community to benefit from our unused levy from previous years, and gifting it to EEAST seems the ideal way to do just that.”
Kate Vaughton, Director of Integration and Deputy Chief Executive at EEAST, said: “The ambulance service is a hugely rewarding career and we have been working hard at EEAST under a new leadership team to make the Trust a fantastic place to learn and work.
“This is an excellent example of how we can work together across the NHS to support our communities. Better partnership working is going to be crucial in the NHS in the future and we are very grateful to our colleagues at ESNEFT for helping us train the next generation of frontline staff with this gift.”
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