Congratulations to HUTH’s Travel Team after they beat off competition from around the country to scoop the title of “Team of the Year” at a prestigious national awards ceremony last night.

Transport Manager Dave Wilkinson and Allison Coggan of the trust’s health and wellbeing programme Up! collected the accolade at the Modeshift National Sustainable Travel Awards for our Getting to Work staff travel project.

HUTH held off competition from Leeds City Council, South Gloucestershire Council and the Bikeability Trust to claim the title at the National Modeshift Convention at York Racecourse  after being nominated by NHS England.

Dave said: “Our trust is now recognised at a national level for our efforts to help staff get to and from work in more affordable and sustainable ways.

“We are very proud to accept this award on behalf of the entire team and the wider trust.”

Dave and Allison, supported by Property Manager Katie Fry, Assistant Transport Manager Wayne Beedle and Marc Beaumont, Head of Sustainability and Social Value, launched the staff travel project as part of our Zero 30 campaign and the trust now offers staff a range of free bus services on routes to the north, south, west and east of the city to Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill.

Since we launched the project in 2022, we’ve achieved a 13pc decrease in the number of staff driving to work and we’ve saved an estimated 150,000 car journeys. We’ve also seen a huge uptake of 18pc in staff now using the free EYMS bus services 154 and 63 between HRI and Castle Hill.

Staff who are not on these routes can also benefit from the SmartCommute card offering discounts on fares and we’ve achieved a 30 per cent increase in applications for our Cycle to Work scheme.

Thanks to a £180,000 investment by our Capital Development Team, hundreds of staff have signed up to use our new bike compounds at both hospitals.

We’ve linked up with East Riding Council and Hull City Council as well as East Yorkshire Buses and Stagecoach for four Getting to Work travel events in May and both councils recently provided free bike lights and hi-vis clothing for our “Be Safe, Be Seen” events last month as the clocks went back.

The trust became the first organisation in the region to be awarded Silver in Modeshift’s accreditation scheme for our Getting to Work project and NHS England invited us to become one of their exemplar sites last autumn after learning of our success.