I want to be positive. The NHS has managed to survive for 75 years. I have worked in or around it for nearly 36 years. I am here because White people were there, expanding the British empire to parts of the Caribbean. ‘There’ being Barbados, a small island in the Caribbean.
My parents are of the Windrush generation. They were not on the ship that arrived in 1948 at Tilbury docks, but my father came by boat as a seaman and my mother by plane in the early 1960s. The Windrush generation spans the time frame from 1948 to the early 1970s (Peplow, 2020).
My sister and I were both born in west London and my oldest niece was born in the same hospital before the site was sold off and made into flats. This was a common occurrence for specialist hospitals in prime London locations and a testament to the realities of the NHS in the late 20th century.
As a Black British female nurse of Caribbean heritage, I am currently researching the lived experiences of women like me for my doctorate. The dual 75th anniversary of these two major events in British history have a personal, professional, and academic resonance for me.
Right now, in June 2023, I cannot be positive because the NHS is in a position where staff shortages, chronic underfunding and the COVID-19 pandemic have had a devastating effect on services and the morale of staff. I have never heard and seen, both personally from friends and work colleagues, and through the media and nursing unions, such desperate feelings of anger, sadness, frustration and despondence.
As a nurse academic, my colleagues and I try to provide the best experience for future nurses in an environment that is challenging to say the least, both in the classroom and in practice. To the students and staff that made it through the pandemic, I salute you. For every student nurse that takes this job of nursing seriously enough to do it right now, I salute you too.
One of the reasons that the NHS was created was to allow access to healthcare for all members of society, especially those who could not afford to pay. Historically, the country's health system had a shocking impact on the quality of life and life expectancy of the population in England (Marmot et al, 2020).
Free accessible health care at the point of use is a right that should be the norm and aimed for any society. Right now, the number of nurses and other health professionals is insufficient to meet the demands of the health service. Access to care can be delayed due to long waiting times for ambulances, long waits in emergency departments and long waiting lists for ‘routine’ operations (Baker, 2023).
Social care and social determinants of health have also worsened due to the cost-of-living crisis, the pandemic, and policy priorities that have been unrealistic to meet the needs of a diverse society in the 21st century (Marmot et al, 2020; Broadbent et al, 2023).
The NHS and nursing do not exist in a void, the pandemic highlighted the inequalities in health experienced by minority groups in the NHS, whether as service users or health professionals, and the cost-of-living crisis has impacted on us all (Patrick and Pybua, 2022).
Hostile immigration policies and the ongoing Windrush saga, with many of the Windrush generation still awaiting compensation by the British Government, indicates the complex and contradictory relationship with equality that Black Caribbeans experience in society (Saroukhani and McLeod, 2023).
Racism is alive and well for the Black Caribbeans of the Windrush generation and their descendants working in the NHS and using the NHS (Razai, et al, 2021). From racism experienced by nurses who have won racial discrimination cases against the NHS this year, such as the case of Ms A Cox vs NHS Commissioning Board, (2023), to the plethora of evidence indicating racism experienced by staff pre- and post-pandemic that has led to the ultimate cost – loss of life (Brathwaite, 2023).
So, I am not positive at all and with good reason. However, what I am is hopeful. It has been 75 years and the NHS is still here and many of us are fighting to keep it going. We recognise how vitally important it is as a British institution. We want it to continue being a wonderful ideal that still generates huge support from those who work in it and the public. And to continue to provide world-leading, high-quality care to all.
As descendants of the Windrush generation, our strong links to the NHS as nurses is something I take great pride in, despite the racism that persists in the NHS. We have stood tall, proud and resilient in our Blackness and Caribbean culture as women and as nurses.
What I hope for in the future is that nursing, the NHS and society really learns the lessons of the past and of the present and demonstrates anti-racism in all things. I hope in the future the need to be so strong and resilient in the face of racism will be a relic of the past, so that healthcare can be equitable to all who work in it and use it.
‘As descendants of the Windrush generation, our strong links to the NHS as nurses is something I take great pride in, despite the racism that persists in the NHS’