• Briefly what has happened at Bluebird Care Newmarket & Fenland since winning the Business of the Year Award in 2019?

Since winning our award last year, we have gone from strength to strength, implementing new enhancements to our business with our health and wellbeing checks and continuing our growth in all of our areas.

• What have been the company’s main challenges in 2019/20?

This year has, so far, seen many challenges still within the industry with encouraging new people to health & social care and more so to continue for them to see this as a real career choice. • What has been your biggest success in 2019/20?

We have continued to develop our career pathway and am excited to announce that we have also expanded our business in acquiring Bluebird Cambridge.

This has increased the size of our team and has opened new roles to be able to continue to offer our team members real career choices.

• What are Bluebird Care Newmarket & Fenland plans for 2020 and beyond?

We are continuing to grow our business and now having an offering to customers throughout Cambridgeshire, we are very much focused on continuing to develop our teams and customer offering to provide the very best in way of customer service.

We have also launched our live-in care service throughout all our areas, allowing us to really specialise in keeping people in their own homes which we know is where the majority of our customers want to be.

• What did winning the awards mean to you and what would you say to businesses thinking about entering the awards for the first time?

Being able to demonstrate the real benefits of not only creating a fantastic place to work but also giving people in health and social care the opportunity of a real career is the overall ethos of what we do.

Customer service and developing people is in our blood and winning the awards just reinforced this, showcasing the hard work that happens in our business all year round.

The company of the year award, which is sponsored by Enterprise East Cambridgeshire, is not directly entered but chosen from the winners.

This year we have the following categories available to enter:

• New Business of the Year

• Small Medium Enterprises of the Year

• Family Business of the Year

• Supporting Young People Award

• Commercial Business in The Community

• The Customer Service Award

• Business Growth Award

• Business Person of the Year

• Employer of the Year

• The Innovation Award

• Special Covid-19 Award

Criteria for each of the categories can be found on the awards website.

The Judges’ Award & The Business of the Year Award - these awards are not directly entered but chosen by the judges and will be announced on the night.

Entry deadline for the 2020 awards is September 30 at 5pm. All entries can be made through the awards website www.elybusinessawards.co.uk

This year’s award ceremony will take place on Friday December 4 at Ely Cathedral.