The Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) & Chief Midwifery Officer’s (CMidO) Black Minority Ethnic Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) are a group that represents ethnically diverse range of Nursing and Midwifery staff and students across the NHS. We are a nationally recognised strategic forum that represents the collective voice of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) nursing and midwifery professionals across NHS England.
Our key objectives are:
1. To advise the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), the Deputy CNO for Professional and System Leadership, and the Chief Midwifery Officer (CMidO) on inclusive policies and strategic priorities.
2. To provide a targeted lens on race equality at a national level, ensuring alignment with the principles of equity, quality care, and workforce wellbeing.
3. To influence the development and implementation of healthcare policies and practices that affect Black and Minority Ethnic communities and the workforce across the NHS
To achieve the above, the group organises workshops, training, national listening events to collate feedback affecting the BME workforce in order to influence change in policy and experience.
The Group has been led by great BME leads in chair roles and the benefit and legacy of their leadership speaks for itself. in the COVID Pandemic, the chair and regional leads lead an Impact peace of work that led to a positive change in how Black, Minority Ethnic Nursing and Midwifery staff throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. the work of the Group cuts across the NHS setting and goes into communities to educate and raise awareness health inequalities and how this negatively impacts the BME communities. in the last few years, the group has supported the training of staff and the raising of awareness on Sickle Cell and developed programmes to change the negative perceptions of these patients in our health care settings.
In recent months( in the last 12 months) the Group held listening events after the Racist unrest that occurred across the nation after the Southport killings of three young girls at the dance studio. The misinformation of this in the news caused a lot of negative press from BME community including NHS staff. A lot of our Internationally Educated Nurses were significantly impacted and attacked by rioter . The group took the opportunity to organise listening events to gather feedback to the CNO and CMiDO of England allowing them the opportunity to hear from the workforce and act on how to Support these staff. Recognising the impact this had on staff, the chairs went further by organising Racial Trauma and Anti-Racism Workshop across the 7 regions of the NHS and this was well attended by the staff from BME and also some allies. the feedback was positive and subsequent workshops are in the planning stage.
In addition to the above, recent changes in immigration and policy has raised concerns and anxiety among majority of the workforce. The network, have also organised an immigration lawyer to speak at events from the various communities represented in the NHS to raise awareness of how this will impact the staff what needs to be done
As advocates to the workforce, the Group continue to support their staff to grow into leadership positions. Particular highlights of the past two years has been the focus of the Group on Leadership and representation of Black, Minority Ethnic staff at senior levels in the NHS. The aim continues to be to move the dial on the over representation of Black, Minority Ethnic staff in lower banding roles ensure that the NHS takes action to ensure that both equality and equity in senior leader appointments. The outcome of the Group’s influence has ensured that several staff have achieved promotion and increased their ability to speak up and speak out. This works continuous relentlessly by the group and this needs to be recognised.
