Graeme Whippy awarded MBE in 2016 New Year Honours list for services to people with dementia and disabilities
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 19 January 2016
London, UK - Business Disability Forum (BDF) is pleased to announce that Graeme Whippy, Senior Manager, Group Disability Programme at Lloyds Banking Group and Disability Consultant at BDF has been awarded an MBE in the 2016 New Year’s Honours list for services to people with dementia and disabilities.
The award was made in recognition of Graeme’s unwavering commitment to the inclusion of disabled people in the workplace and society, along with achievements to that end.
In the early 2000s, Graeme became a pioneer of IT Accessibility best practice by adapting existing standards into a non-technical, ‘business-friendly’ format and encouraging developers and business people in his own organisation and others to adopt these standards. His success in this field led to him being a contributing author to BS 8878 (a British Standard in web accessibility) and being recognised in the 2009 Financial Sector Technology Awards whereby he was presented with the award for 'Outstanding contribution by an individual to the industry.’
Graeme has been instrumental in implementing and running an award winning reasonable adjustments process for disabled employees at Lloyds Banking Group that, since its launch in 2010, has served nearly 30,000 colleagues and contributed to a significant reduction in sickness absence and improvement in disabled colleagues’ performance. Creating a process that democratised adjustments represented a paradigm shift in approach that has since been shared with many other organisations and resulted in Graeme’s preferred term “workplace adjustments” becoming common parlance among disability inclusion advocates.
In order to improve services for people with dementia, Graeme has represented the banking sector on the Prime Minister’s Dementia Challenge since 2013 and personally leads on the creation of a cross-industry Dementia Friendly Financial Services Charter which helps banks, building societies and insurance companies better understand the needs of people with dementia and better able to meet those needs. Graeme also set up and chairs his hometown’s Dementia Action Alliance.
Over the years, Graeme has been tireless in sharing best practice via bodies such as Business Disability Forum, Disability Rights UK, EHRC, Department of Work & Pensions, British Standards Institution, the EU Commission and International Labour Organisation.
Since January 2015 Graeme has worked part-time at the Business Disability Forum to help the organisation develop additional services and leverage the experience gained at Lloyds Banking Group for the benefit of its 300+ Members and Partners.
Speaking about his award, Graeme said:
“I was surprised and delighted to have been awarded an MBE and feel very fortunate to have received it. I hope that having these letters after my name will add power to my elbow when talking about the needs of people with disabilities and dementia and how everyone has a role to play in ensuring their inclusion in the workplace and society.”
ENDS
Notes to editors:
- BDF is a not-for-profit business membership organisation that represents some 300 organisations that employ 20% of the UK workforce. The company has more than twenty years experience of working with public and private sector employers and service providers. For more information about BDF, please visit: http://businessdisabilityforum.org.uk/about-us
- For BDF media enquiries please contact Emily Jackson, Press Officer at Business Disability Forum on 020 7089 2404 or email emilyj@businessdisabilityforum.org.uk
Emily Jackson - Press Officer
Email: emilyj@businessdisabilityforum.org.uk | Phone: 020 7089 2404
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