A DUDLEY College campus is helping the fight against COVID-19 by training new call assessors for West Midlands Ambulance Service.

The Construction Apprenticeship Training Centre based at the Waterfront has been repurposed into a recruitment and training facility for the Ambulance Service, who are also based at the Waterfront.

The move comes as West Midlands Ambulance Service recently recruited over 600 applicants for call assessor positions to strengthen their service response in the current crisis.

As a result, the CAT Centre has been transformed into a facility where WMAS can train the new call assessors so that 999 and 111 calls can be answered promptly.

In a further move, Dudley College has also given its parking spaces at the Waterfront to staff working in the Ambulance Service control room.

Jeremy Brown, the WMAS Trust’s Integrated Emergency and Urgent Care Director, said: “We are immensely grateful to our neighbours, Dudley College, for allowing us to utilise their building at Waterfront Business Park during a national emergency.

"With our own training academy already at capacity, our recruitment and training teams are using the additional space to assess and train hundreds of new call assessors to further bolster staffing levels in our 999 control room.

"With more staff than ever in our 111 and 999 control rooms as the service continues to respond to the pandemic, the extra parking spaces that have also been provided by the college are also welcomed and being utilised 24/7 by our control room staff.”

Neil Thomas, Chief Executive and Principal of Dudley College of Technology, added: "We are proud to be playing our part and supporting our community during these difficult times as the training of staff for these key roles is vital to us all.”