Employees at Northern Care Alliance get moving through a bike hire scheme

By GreaterSport | 23 December 2021 | TAGS: Stories, Active Workplaces, Adults

The Northern Care Alliance (NCA) NHS group run the E-bike hire scheme in partnership with Manchester Bike Hire. The scheme gives all NCA employees the chance to trial an Emu E-bike, with all the necessary equipment provided (Helmet, Locks, Hi-Vis vest etc), for 4 weeks free of charge.  

Jamie McGoldrick, Deputy Travel and Access Manager tells us about the scheme below.  

The scheme has gone from strength to strength over the last 9 months with increased communications being sent out to all trust employees via our communications team and via Manchester Bike Hire and our Trusts social media pages. We have also been advertising our Dr Bike sessions alongside the E-bike scheme for those staff members who already own their own bikes.  

The E-bike hire scheme initially started back in May last year 2020 after we had put together a business case and received the funds to invest in 20 Emu E-bikes. Since then  we have  pooled together with the University of Salford to give staff members more choice when deciding to trial an E-bike. We are currently in the process of writing a further business case in the hope that we will be able to increase the number of E-bikes we can offer and provide a wider variety of bikes. 

The scheme gives all NCA employees the chance to trial an Emu E-bike, with all the necessary equipment provided (Helmet, Locks, Hi-Vis vest etc), for 4 weeks free of charge. Over the last couple of months, we have also managed to gain access to some more expensive Ridgeback E-bikes for staff members to trial by pooling our bikes together with the University of Salford and their E-Bike hire scheme. (The ridgeback E-bikes are very popular with several staff at the NCA and students at the university opting to buy the bikes after their first ride on the bike). 

After the initial 4-week free trial period NCA staff are given the opportunity to continue renting the E-bike for £12 per month (Cheaper than a weekly bus ticket), Buy the E-bike via various methods including our Cycle to work scheme and Klarna credit, or return the E-bike at no charge.  

The E-Bike hire scheme has been incredible successful thus far with several staff members already choosing to purchase or continue to hire an E-bike after the initial 28-day trial period. 

We have received the following quotes from employees; 

“Absolutely loving the E-bike! It has helped me so much with my health as well as commuting to work. I will definitely be carrying on with hiring it for as long as possible”  

and 

"I have always been a keen cyclist and after my hip replacement trialling the E-bike has help me get back riding"​ 

Due to the success of the scheme, we are looking at options to expand the scheme and provide additional E-bikes for our staff members to trial.