Avoca were awarded a Regional Award at the prestigious UK National Training Awards in October 2009. This award recognises outstanding achievements in training and development in the East Midlands region. Avoca was presented this prestigious award on Tuesday 20th October 2009 at the UK National Training Awards ceremony, which was held at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham.

 

Previous to this Avoca were visited by two representatives from the judging panel. The judges were interested to find out more about the training we deliver and to speak to members of the Avoca team who have been involved in the training, either as a trainer or a trainee. The judges learned the following about the type of training we offer; the Avoca training programme developed during 2005, from a business need for health information specialists involved in analysing complex NHS data and information that supports migration. We had difficulty recruiting experienced health informatics professionals who had the breadth and depth of experience that our work requires.

 

The training programme has now evolved into the Avoca Health Informatics Training Academy which is unique to our industry. The academy has been designed and developed from ‘scratch’ by our Operations Manager, Julie Waters; a highly experienced Health Informatics Professional and intuitive trainer. The programme achieves an integrated approach to performance and learning by ensuring the workshops and exercises are focused on the real-life work issues that trainees need to address. The programme is delivered through a finely tuned mixture of workshops delivered by in-house knowledge experts, tailored personal development, one-to-one coaching, practical exercises, ‘shadowing’ of highly skilled personnel and self-driven learning. The judges were clearly impressed by our Health Informatics Training Academy and the Avoca ethos towards training has lead us to win this Regional Training Award.

 

“Congratulations on becoming a Regional Training Award Winner! The judges considered this to be a very interesting entry and were impressed at the on-site visit that this initiative has demonstrated some really impressive impact. Business growth has been steady to the point of becoming market leaders in the field, no small achievement! It would appear to judges that there are few if any companies that do this sort of training, making this unusual approach even more impressive. For a small organisation, the judges were really impressed with the great deal of support given to each learner.”
This feedback followed on from the judging stage of the National Training Awards judging and assessment process.