2021 WINNERS

What makes a winner?

Theresa Maunganidze

Theresa Maunganidze  West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust

BAME Nurse of the Year 

Theresa went beyond her duty during the pandemic and raised awareness of the mental health strain felt by BAME workers as they watched friends, family, and colleagues suffer from COVID-19. 

Ariel Lanada

José Ariel Lañada  Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

BAME Nurse of the Year 

During COVID-19, Jose led the way in teamwork to ensure staff felt supported, including delivering groceries to his Filipino colleagues at home when a number tested positive for the virus. 

Angelina Ankomah  West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust

BAME Midwife of the Year 

Angelina is a believer in mentorship in the NHS workforce, where she acts as a mentor to less experienced BAME staff and has a mentor herself to help her on her career journey.

Robert Goddard  Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust  Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Compassionate and Inclusive Leader – Initiative 

Robert believes in allyship to achieve equality and has suggested that BAME staff should be included on recruitment panels in his trust to encourage a greater hiring cohort of diverse staff. 

Kulvant Sandhu  Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust 

Compassionate and Inclusive Leader – Role Model

Kulvant has been improving her trust’s BAME network by establishing a talent management action plan with colleagues, making the trust one of the most inclusive employers this year.

Francis Fernando  Filipino Nurses Association UK

Compassionate and Inclusive Leader – Initiative 

Francis helped set up the Filipino Nurses Association UK to amplify the voices of Filipino workers, who were working on the frontline and losing family and colleagues to the virus.

Daisy Peets  West Hertfordshire Hospital NHS Trust

Compassionate and Inclusive Leader – Network

Daisy helped set up her trust’s BAME network at a time when there wasn’t much support available for BAME workers. Today, the network acts as a “listening ear” for BAME staff.

The Filipino Nurses Association UK 

Community Initiative of the Year

The Association was founded to represent the interests of Filipino healthcare workers during the pandemic and has been vital in giving this community access to networking opportunities and general support. 

Akin Falayajo  United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust

Emergency and Critical Care Healthcare Professional  

Akin is reducing inequalities in-patient care by enhancing the patient experience in ambulatory medicine via his involvement in all aspects of service design to ensure safer and more effective care. 

Anna Awoliyi

Anna Awoliyi  Kettering General Hospital

Digital Champion of the Year 

Anna has improved the visiting experiences for patients and families by implementing virtual visiting technology, which provides 1:1 video calls to improve the patient experience in the long term.

Mehvish Shaffi-Ajibola  Whittington Health NHS Trust

Inspiring Diversity and Inclusion Lead of the Year – Initiative

Mehvish has a clear and visible leadership style which helped give her organisation’s BAME colleagues a voice, while her engagement with key stakeholders was instrumental in driving organisational change. 

Louis Palmer  Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust

Ground Breaking Researcher of the Year 

With a grandparent who worked for the NHS, Louis understands the contributions BAME staff have made to healthcare. His work follows this legacy by encouraging BAME communities to participate in research.

Dr Mohammedabbas

Mohammedabbas Abbas Khaki  Royal College of General Practitioners

Mental Health Initiative of the Year 

By creating a tech-based platform, Mohammedabbas and his team were able to access a large proportion of the BAME population and  provide a database of alternative food choices to improve health. 

Estwar Sanichar  Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust 

Inspiring Diversity and Inclusion Lead of the Year– Role model 

Estwar discovered his passion for care in the church and has become a role model for BAME leadership in UK healthcare, working with stakeholders to improve the lives of BAME colleagues. 

Priyanika Jesrani  DynamicHealth Musculoskeletal and Specialist Physiotherapy (part of Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust). 

Outstanding Achievement of the Year 

Priyanika is improving healthcare for women from the South-Asian community, one of the most marginalised groups in her area. Sessions conducted in South-Asian languages made patients feel part of a community.

Aarthi Rajendran

Aarthi Rajendran  Hull University Teaching Hospital NHS Trust

Outstanding Corporate Achievement of the Year 

Aarthi is eliminating injustices across health groups, despite only moving to the UK fifteen years ago with no knowledge of how the NHS operated, making her a true BAME healthcare role model. 

Hala Kandil and Rama Vancheeswaran  West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust

Clinical Champion of the Year

The winners have been implementing and improving diagnostic and clinical services for their BAME patients and supporting their BAME colleagues as they work to provide the best standard of care.

Jody Bell – Oxford Brookes University

Outstanding Contribution to Social Care 

Jody has used education to enlighten students and her faculty colleagues at her university about anti-racist processes, where she is committed to decolonising the course curriculum. 

Akinola and Olubukola Adewunmi  Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Health and Wellbeing Advocate 

Akinola and his wife Olubukola are encouraging more people from their local BAME community to give blood and are collaborating with religious and community organisations to raise awareness.

Manchester University

Nour Moteirek and Hafsa Atique-Ur-Rehman – Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

Workforce Innovator of the Year

The winners made a concerted effort to educate their workforce about the Black Lives Matter movement, including a “check your privilege quiz” and examples of books and films to watch.