Chair's blog: I don't need research

This month our Chair, Dean Fathers, is sharing a blog post. Since October is Black History Month, he has chosen to shine a light on some inspiring BME leaders from his NHS career.

I was inspired to write this blog by a comment made by Annett on my LinkedIn page - "A great place to work is a great place to be cared for". Annett is the co-Chair of Nottinghamshire Healthcare's BME network and her quote reminded me of the research based Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) which quite clearly has the quantified evidence to back up this assertion. Intuitively I just know it to be true too. I have over the years seen the evidence of this in the behaviours of numerous people in a wide range of organisations. Annett herself is a wonderful example. Not only has she improved the quality of my life by caring enough for me to invest her valuable time in mentoring me, but she has positively impacted on the lives of so many of the staff and service users of this Trust with her infectious happiness, her complete dedication and her strong, unflappable leadership. She is much admired, highly valued and greatly respected by the Board, the leadership team, her staff and those she cares for alike.

Unsung heroes also include wonderful people like Kishan, who I was privileged to mentor whilst at United Lincolnshire Hospitals. Kishan is passionate that medical staff should have the best education possible and went above and beyond to provide free educational programmes through social media. He did this despite resistance from others who would have preferred him to 'stay within his grade' and persevered, showing great personal courage and resilience. His leadership, driven by his compassion for his patients and his desire to do the best by them, was inspirational. He is the only A&E Doctor that I am aware of who has organised family consent to visit a discharged patient at home several days later to assure himself that he had done a good job, which he had. Care and compassion go hand in hand with learning and quality for Kishan.

Learning is something that Imogeen was keen on too. She worked with the Trust as a Stakeholder Governor. Imogeen supported the Trust by volunteering to become a first wave participant on the Trust's Board Apprentice programme. This action learning programme was created by a system wide group of stakeholder organisations to enable talented people from under-represented groups (with potential but no Board experience) to learn how to be Non-executive Directors. This programme was adopted by the NHS, becoming the national NeXT Director development programme. Imogeen subsequently gained promotion and also became a Governor of the Trust. The success of those volunteers who went through the Nottinghamshire programme provided the evidence for others nationally to note what the benefits of good practice could be. Take Clinton for example, who having gained a place on the programme repaid our investment by becoming an elected Governor of the Trust, by volunteering to Chair the League of Friends and by raising valuable charitable funds for the benefit of the Trust's service users.

I have numerous other noteworthy examples; Arshad, Tanweer, Itai, Zafran, Suzanne and Sheila, to name but a few, as well of course the magnificent Yvonne and Marie and the rest of the WRES team. Looking at the great work all these people do makes me feel privileged to be the Chair of an NHS body. I don't need research to tell me that a great place to work is a great place to be cared for. I just look at the talent around me.