Frome Medical Practice has recently achieved Level 2 as a Disability Confident employer.

The Disability Confident scheme is designed to change attitudes and increase understanding of disability, creating a movement of change and encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people.

The practice signed up to the scheme at Level 1, which is the entry level for any employer who agrees to the Disability Confident commitments, who can identify at least one action that they will carry out to make a difference for disabled people.

Some of the work undertaken by the practice to progress to Level 2 includes working with the Department of Work and Pensions and local Job Centre to improve approaches to recruitment and establishing a practice Equality, Diversity and Inclusion staff group, which acts as both a sounding board for ideas and a group to encourage positive change. 

Stephanie Norman is the Human Resources Manager at Frome Medical Practice and said, "The Disability Confident scheme is important to us as an employer for a number of reasons.

"We are in the position of being able to challenge attitudes and increase understanding of disability and we want to continue to focus on this.

"We are also working in a field where recruitment and retention of staff can be challenging. Being Disability Confident means we have more potential to attract staff who are skilled and loyal and we can hopefully retain them, by improving staff morale and treating all staff fairly." 

"We are committed to inclusion and diversity in the workplace and achieving Disability Confident Level 2 is one of our ways of demonstrating this.

"We are now committed to working towards achieving Level 3, to become a Disability Confident Leader, so we can share our learning within our wider business communities." 

Practice Manager Karen Creffield said, "We are extremely pleased to have achieved Level 2 Disability Confident.

"The process of completing the assessment means we have taken a thorough look at the measures we are taking to recruit and retain staff and improvements have been made where needed.

"The partners want to thank the staff who have worked hard on this area of work and who are now continuing the work so we can hopefully achieve Level 3 in the near future." 

Disability Confident is a national scheme that any employer can sign up to. Find out more here.