Who are we, again?

I heard Sir Lenny Henry interviewed on the radio the other day and he was charming, serious, vulnerable, perceptive and funny.

He was talking about his new autobiography Who Am I, Again?, which covers his early years and his rise to fame. The book chronicles his extraordinary story, from his birth soon after his Jamaican mother arrived in the Midlands to being raised as one of seven siblings in a boisterous, complicated working household.

He talked about braving the world with his mum keen to see him ‘fitting in’ and her mantra of “H’integration! H’integration! H’integration!” echoing in his ears. Making people laugh helped stem the daily bigotry and bullying and, on his roller coaster ride of a career, he said he spent every stage wondering: Am I good enough? Is this what they want?

It’s Black History Month and hearing Lenny Henry talk about the shocking and unashamed racism he faced in 1970s Dudley shows that we have thankfully made some progress. But I’m sure we’ll all agree that we still have an awfully long way to go.

I am of course acutely aware of my own colour as I write this and that ‘white privilege’ is an historical legacy and a cause of racism (even though we’d probably all be amazed at our ancestry DNA, as most of us Brits have a very mixed heritage). But I feel I can talk about the huge benefits of diversity as I’ve seen the overwhelming evidence and results.

I mentioned diversity briefly in my last blog and the concept is really very simple. The greater the mix of people in our organisation, the greater the mix of experiences, perspectives and ideas we can draw on for better, more well-rounded, decision-making. In fact, researchers found that the extent to which an organisation values its BAME staff is a good benchmark of how well patients are likely to feel cared for. 

So it was good to attend the NHS Providers annual conference in Manchester this week and hear Prerana Issar, Chief People Officer for NHS Improvement/England talking about work to improve diversity which will feature heavily within the people plan when it is published later this year.  

Policies alone are not enough to build an inclusive workplace. We need to challenge and remove any barriers to achieve a genuinely inclusive culture. We therefore want to hear your experiences and views and we are setting up different networks, forums and channels to hopefully capture these. I encourage you to get involved in these if you want to help us change things.

It was great to see a lot of discussion about mental health at the conference too. This hasn’t always been the case but, in addition to some inspirational personal stories, it featured in most people’s presentations.

NHS Providers have actually just launched a campaign to highlight the need for capital investment in mental health trusts, not just hospitals, which I have supported. Simon Stevens, NHS England chief exec, who spoke at the conference also said that they have a worked up solution for dealing with mental health dormitories when talking about capital investment, so let’s watch this space. 

Away from the speeches, forums and workshops at the conference I managed to visit our Manchester Resilience Hub stand, which was selected to showcase its brilliant partnership work. We’re all very proud of the team and the ground-breaking work they are doing.

It was also World Mental Health Day yesterday and I spent the morning in Tameside talking to our partners from the Integrated Care Foundation Trust, CCG and Local Authority about our shared mental health priorities and how we can work closely together on these.  The living life well model being rolled out in Tameside and Glossop sounds very positive and both staff and people accessing the service seem to be benefitting from this more integrated approach.

Coming back to the office after this meeting, I only noticed belatedly on twitter that Taylor and Saxon wards were having a ‘cake fest’ and sing-song on the wards to mark the day, otherwise I would definitely have dropped in for a slice!

But well done to all our services that did something on the day to raise awareness of mental health issues, and in particular, about the scale of suicide. It’s shocking, sad and sobering that every 40 seconds someone loses their life to suicide. We’re all likely to know someone who has lost their life in this way or who has been affected by such a traumatic loss, so marking this day is very important.

This month we’ve said goodbye to more community colleagues, with Trafford, urgent dental and child health information services transferring to other organisations. They will be missed, and their different skills, experiences and perspectives have certainly helped us all over the years.

We’ve learnt much from our community colleagues and are so grateful for that. Good quality care depends on working and learning together. That’s why our partnerships are so essential going forward.

So, can I take this opportunity to thank, once again, everyone who has worked incredibly hard on the transfers. We’re not quite there yet, but it’s been an immense and intense piece of work and your efforts are hugely appreciated.