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We receive an award of excellence

We have been awarded the prestigious Excellence Award from charity Action on Hearing Loss Cymru.


(left to right) Pictured with Richard Williams, Director of Action on Hearing Loss are WPD’s Karen Welch and Paul Bishop who received the Overall Excellence Award from Gill Hadfield, Chair of Judging Panel and Journalist and Presenter Marieclare Carey-Jones.

The award is given to organisations that go above and beyond to make their services accessible to the one in six people in Wales with hearing loss.

Five Welsh organisations were presented with awards for their continued efforts to creating a deaf friendly Wales. We were declared the overall winner of the evening and we were praised by the judging panel for our ‘all round excellence’ and outstanding engagement with the issues surrounding deafness.

We received the overall Excellence Wales 2016 honour after impressing judges with our new text service to help deaf customers during power cuts and for ensuring our Contact Centre staff receive deaf awareness training.

Recently we provided training which was delivered by a local theatre company made up of actors with disabilities. The training is designed to help contact centre staff learn to respond appropriately and improve their communication skills with customers with communication difficulties.

Speaking at the Excellence Wales Awards Ceremony, WPD’s Corporate Communication Manager, Paul Bishop commented: “We really do recognise the importance of ensuring our services are accessible to everyone and have worked tirelessly to put practices in place to do this.

“From specialised training and workshops to customised communication methods and amplified telephones, we continually strive to make sure our customers feel confident that they will be able to contact us at all times.

“We were recognised in last year’s Excellence Awards and awarded the Bronze Award so it’s a real honour that this year we have won the Overall Excellence Award. It’s testimony to our ongoing efforts which we will only look to continue going forward.”

Other winners from the awards included Bridgend County Borough Council and the National Assembly for Wales. Both organisations, who were also winners at last year’s celebrations, were awarded Excellence Awards.

The Excellence Awards were established by Action on Hearing Loss to recognise businesses and organisations that take steps to support the 575,000 people in Wales who have varying degrees of hearing loss.

The judging panel was made up of people who are deaf or have hearing loss, and the awards were held at Cardiff’s Marriott Hotel on May 20th 2016, presented by journalist and presenter Mariclare Carey-Jones.

Action on Hearing Loss, formerly RNID, has been supporting people who are deaf or have hearing loss since 1911. The charity launched the Excellence Wales Awards last year in an effort to celebrate success and raise standards in the support organisations offer to staff and the everyday services available to people affected by the condition.

Richard Williams, the Director of Action on Hearing Loss Cymru, said: “The judging panel had the really difficult job of deciding the winners from an impressive shortlist, but I think they have done a fantastic job. All of our winners prove that simple changes can make the lives of deaf people more manageable on a day to day basis.

“I hope that organisations across Wales are inspired by our winners and start to think about changes they can make to ensure their services are accessible to the one in six people who are deaf or experience hearing loss.
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