West Midland Ambulance Service

The Learning and Development Programme

Engaging Leaders Programme: Diploma in Professional Development, accredited by Coventry University
Programme duration: 18 months
Participants: Middle and senior managers at band 7 and above

The Company

West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) covers a geographical area of approximately 5,000 square miles and serves a population of 5.3 million people living in Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire,
Coventry, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Birmingham and the Black Country. The Trust has a total number of 4,250 employees, 53 ambulance stations and uses over 850 vehicles.

The Need

WMAS Organisational Development Team designed and developed a leadership and management programme and was seeking assistance to certificate and accredit it to an externally recognised standard. In particular, they were looking to develop an assessment strategy that monitored participation and performance improvement. The Trust also wanted to benchmark its programme to ensure it developed talent successfully and improved service performance for the benefit of patients and other service users.

The Solution

Acua has enhanced the learning programme by refining existing modules and certificating them to university standards. In addition, Acua and WMAS jointly designed additional modules to complement
the learning content and material to create a complete package that better meets the needs of WMAS.

The programme allows individual performance to be monitored through a formal assessment and ensures it has a positive impact in the delivered service and also encourages participation by offering an
externally recognised qualification upon completion. Over 45 employees are taking part in the leadership development programme who, upon completion, will achieve a Diploma in Professional Development.

The WMAS programme components include:

• Online pre-assessment tools which focus on career tactics
  and competencies
• The use of blended delivery methods
• Workshops
• Action learning sets
• Masterclasses
• Coaching and mentoring
• E-learning

*Coventry University Higher Education Corporation offers services through subsidiaries which form the Coventry University Group. Delivery of the above mentioned services will therefore be via an entity which forms part of the  Coventry University Group. The Coventry University Group includes, but is not limited to Coventry University College Limited, Coventry University London Campus Limited, Coventry University Enterprises Ltd, CU Services Ltd, Serious Games International and formerly ACUA Ltd and  Acua Solutions Ltd. The Group delivers teaching, research and commercial services.