UHMBT has appointed Hannah Chandisingh as its Race Equality Transformation Lead.
Working across all of UHMBT’s hospital and community teams in Morecambe Bay, Hannah will support the Trust to address race inequalities and racism – improving both colleague and patient experience.
Over recent months, inequity through ethnicity/race has risen to the fore, firstly due to the way that COVID-19 has particularly impacted on the health and wellbeing of individuals from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) background, the disproportionate deaths of BAME NHS workers and through the Black Lives Matter campaign that has highlighted the level of inherent racism in society and the need to take decisive action to fundamentally shift the level of inequity attributable to ethnicity alone.
Hannah will be working with leaders at the Trust to develop a better understanding of what it means to be an anti-racist, supporting them to change processes and culture within their own teams, to speak up louder against racism and raise up the voices that aren’t as often heard.
A key part of the agenda will be to ensure that leadership better reflects the workforce, not only by making recruitment practices more inclusive, but by changes to support colleagues in their career development and ensuring that all colleagues feel valued and accepted.
Hannah, who was previously Communications and Engagement Manager for Bay Hospitals Charity, was also one of the leads for the BAME Network at UHMBT where she has supported colleagues through the COVID-19 pandemic. She also sits on a number of local and national groups including the South Cumbria Community Safety Partnership, tackling hate crime alongside the council and local police.
The Trust decided to create the role of Race Equality Transformation Lead to ensure that it is actively anti-racist.
Hannah will be working with Karmini McCann, the Trust’s Head of Inclusion and Engagement, as well as the wider team to ensure that their work programmes are planned and managed effectively and take the lead in assisting in their successful delivery.
Hannah said: “I am thrilled to be leading this work at UHMBT. We have a long road ahead, but I have no doubt that the incredible NHS workers here at Morecambe Bay will come together on this agenda to make a real difference to the lives of our colleagues, friends and patients.”
Karmini said: “I am delighted that we have appointed Hannah to this new role, supporting our organisation to become actively anti-racist; to truly address racism and racial inequalities.
“With Hannah’s absolute passion and commitment for this agenda, her approach, her values and behaviours, I am confident that she is going to really make a difference to the experience of BAME colleagues and, indeed, to everyone working at UHMBT.”
Aaron Cummins, Chief Executive of UHMBT, said: “We are extremely pleased to have Hannah on board as our Race Equality Transformation Lead and are fully committed to standing against racism.
“We believe it is incredibly important to listen and learn from the views and experiences of our BAME colleagues and BAME Network about what it really means to be anti-racist.
“We have appointed Hannah because we believe that we need to push ourselves harder to drive much greater change. Over recent years we have been working on becoming meaningfully anti-racist and this work must be strengthened and sustained. We will also report on progress so that everyone can see and contribute to our drive to tackle racism.”