Our Star Awards

This is our prestigious annual staff celebration, fully funded by sponsorship, where we come together to celebrate our collective and individual achievements. Colleagues nominate each other across various categories, with finalists and winners chosen by our leadership team for the awards ceremony.

Long Service Awards

It’s a privilege and honour to have colleagues who dedicate large proportions of their career to NWAS and the NHS. We celebrate milestones at 10, 20, 25, 30 years’ service and every five years thereafter, including with events, framed certificates, gift vouchers, personal thank you letters and commemorative coins/pin badges.

We also present the national Ambulance Service (Emergency duties) Long Service and Good Conduct Medal to eligible colleagues.

External awards and honours

We regularly enter teams, groups and individual staff into external local, regional and national and industry awards, and promote these across our staff communications and in the press.

We also support and encourage submissions for national ambulance and public service honours, including the Ambulance Leadership Forum and King’s Ambulance Service Medal (KAM).

Patient and family thank yous

Many patients and families share thank you messages with us for the care they have received. We make sure these are shared with our staff and teams and celebrated with a letter of recognition from their Head of Service.

Staff recognition cards

We believe it’s important that colleagues feel recognised and show appreciation to each other. We have a variety of both printed and digital cards for colleagues to send to each other – whether to say thanks, celebrate a birthday or work anniversary or just tell someone you’re thinking of them.

Baby delivery and CPR pin badges

For patient-facing staff, including those in our contact centres, supporting the delivery of a baby or life-saving CPR is a really special part of their role, and we give out pin badges to staff to recognise this achievement.

Regular staff communications

We regularly share good news, staff achievements and milestones across our internal trust-wide communications.

NHS Staff Survey

Our annual staff survey gives staff the chance to make their voice heard and influence positive change across the trust. This helps ensure our staff play an active role in shaping a better, more responsive, and supportive working environment for everyone.