Skip to main content Skip to navigation Skip to mobile navigation Skip to accessibility tools
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership logo
nhsLogo.png
  • About us
    • About us
    • Our approach to working together
      • Our approach to working together
      • Bradford Local Plan
      • Calderdale Local Plan
      • Kirklees Local Plan
      • Leeds Local Plan
      • Wakefield Local Plan
      • We stand together
    • Our mission, values and behaviours
    • Our 10 big ambitions
    • Our key achievements in 2023/24
    • Our partners
      • Our partners
      • Proud to be a partnership
      • West Yorkshire Hospice Collaborative
    • Partnership CEO lead
    • Integrated Care Board Chair
    • Partnership Board
    • Non-executive opportunities in the NHS
    • Our Race Equality Network
  • West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board
    • West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board
    • About our Integrated Care Board
      • About our Integrated Care Board
      • Who's who
      • Our partners
      • Integrated Care Board constitution
      • Committees
      • Governance
        • Governance
        • National Fraud Initiative
        • Lists and registers
      • Equality, diversity and inclusion
      • Improving the diversity of our leadership
      • About integrated care systems
      • How we use data
      • General Practice information
      • Emergency preparedness, resilience and response
      • ICB organisational structure
    • Places
      • Places
      • Bradford District and Craven
      • Calderdale
      • Kirklees
      • Leeds
      • Wakefield District
    • Meetings
      • Meetings
      • Annual General Meetings (AGMs)
        • Annual General Meetings (AGMs)
        • Annual General Meeting - 24 September 2024
      • Integrated Care Board
        • Integrated Care Board
        • Board engagement sessions
      • Audit Committee
      • Finance, Investment and Performance Committee
      • Quality committee
      • Remuneration and Nomination Committee
      • Transformation Committee
      • Place committees
    • Documents
      • Documents
      • Annual Report and Accounts
        • Annual Report and Accounts
        • Integrated Care Board Annual Report 2023-24
        • Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23
      • Commissioning policies and contract updates
      • Governance documents and policies
      • Reports and plans
      • Our Joint Forward Plan 2024
      • Publication scheme
      • Medicines classification and guidelines
      • NHS continuing healthcare
      • Disclosure log
      • Corporate policies
      • Zero tolerance
      • Accreditation for the award of contracts
      • Modern slavery statement
      • People Strategy 2024-2027
    • Involvement
    • Contact
      • Contact
      • Submit a question to the Board
      • Submit an information request
        • Submit an information request
        • Subject Access Request
      • Comments, concerns and complaints
      • NHS continuing healthcare
    • News
    • Partnership website
  • Our priorities
    • Our priorities
    • The difference our Partnership is making
    • Cancer
    • Capital and estates
    • Children, young people and families
    • Digital technology
    • Hospitals working together (WYAAT)
    • Improving population health
    • Innovation and improvement
    • Long term conditions and personalised care
    • Medicines and prescribing
    • Maternity care
    • Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism
    • Power of Communities
    • Planned care
    • Primary and community care
      • Primary and community care
      • Dental services
        • Dental services
        • Improving dentistry in West Yorkshire
        • Community dental services
      • Respiratory Care
      • Virtual wards
    • Suicide prevention
    • Supporting carers
      • Supporting carers
      • Carers hospital discharge toolkit
    • Urgent and emergency care
    • Vaccination and immunisations
    • Workforce
      • Workforce
      • Allied Health Professions
      • Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism workforce
      • People Plan
      • Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing Hub
      • System and Leadership Development
      • Racial Inequalities Training
      • The Race Equality Network
  • News
    • News
    • Blogs
    • Podcasts
  • Meetings
    • Meetings
    • Our Partnership Board
      • Our Partnership Board
      • Partnership Board papers
        • Partnership Board papers
        • West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Board meeting - Tuesday 7 March 2023
        • West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Board meeting - Tuesday 6 June 2023
        • West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Board meeting - Tuesday 5 September 2023
        • West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Board meeting - Tuesday 5 December 2023
        • West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Board meeting - Tuesday 5 March 2024
        • West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Board meeting - Tuesday 16 July 2024
      • Board membership
      • Ask the Partnership Board a question
      • Partnership Board webcast
    • Supporting ethnic minority communities and staff - review panel
    • NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board
  • Publications
    • Publications
    • The difference our partnership is making (case studies)
    • Our Joint Forward Plan 2024
    • West Yorkshire Integrated Care Strategy 2023
    • Our People Plan 2021-25
    • Tackling health inequalities for ethnic minority communities and colleagues
    • Ethical Framework for West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership
    • West Yorkshire Suicide Prevention Strategy 2022-27
    • Easy reads
    • Other publications
    • West Yorkshire Public Involvement Report 2023-24
    • West Yorkshire ICB Placement Strategy
    • Power of one power of many
  • Campaigns
    • Campaigns
    • Leaving a Gap
    • All hands in
    • West Yorkshire Suicide Prevention Champions
    • Check-in: staff suicide prevention campaign
    • Check-in with your mate
    • Looking out for our neighbours
    • Root Out Racism
    • Together We Can
    • Medicines Safety campaign
    • #MumsCan quit smoking
    • Rightsizing - your home, your choice
    • Speak with a midwife
      • Speak with a midwife
      • Speak with a midwife - for health & care professionals
    • Find out how you really are
    • Seriously Resistant
    • Reasonable Adjustments
    • Mental Health, Learning Disabilities, and Autism Healthcare Support Worker recruitment
    • Maternal Mental Health
    • Gloves off
    • #LetsConnect
    • Vaccinations and immunisations
    • #AutismADHDAllies
    • Midwifery careers
  • Involvement
    • Involvement
    • Get involved
      • Get involved
      • Non-emergency patient transport
      • West Yorkshire Voice
        • West Yorkshire Voice
        • Join West Yorkshire Voice today
        • Telling people about West Yorkshire Voice
        • West Yorkshire Voice newsletter
        • West Yorkshire Voice members' page
        • How your voice has helped
        • Meet the West Yorkshire Voice team
      • Health and Care Champions
      • Building a new equity and fairness strategy for West Yorkshire
      • Change NHS: Helping shape a health service fit for the future
      • Perinatal Pelvic Health Service – Patient experience
      • Help shape the future of obesity services in West Yorkshire, Humber and North Yorkshire
      • West Yorkshire mental health crisis support - Your experiences and feedback
    • Previous involvement
    • Consultation
    • Working in partnership
      • Working in partnership
      • Wider Involvement Network
    • Evaluating our involvement
    • Co-production
    • Working with Healthwatch
    • Involvement framework
    • Involvement and consultation mapping report
    • West Yorkshire Public Involvement Report 2023-24
    • Communication and involvement plan
  • Contact us
    • Contact us
    • Any questions?
      • Any questions?
      • You said, we did...
      • Frequently asked questions
      • Integrated Care Jargon Buster

Dr Julie Duodo on why Black History Month is important

Posted on: 30 October 2020

Black History Month: Why is it important?

Hello my name is Julie

Julie Duodu left with sister Stephanie AmorMainstream history is often not comprehensive and that is why initiatives such as Black History Month are vital. It illuminates forgotten heroes or “whitewashed” events of our shared past. Raising awareness of these rich stories plants healthy seeds which can have a lasting impact both inside and outside of Black Culture. Black history is abundant and relevant all year!

The UK Black History Month was started in 1987 by Mr Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, a Ghanaian political refugee. He was able, as part of his role as a special project coordinator for Greater London Council, to start this annual celebration of the achievements and contributions to World Civilisation of Africa, African people and the diaspora.

I am a first generation immigrant of Ghanaian parents and I grew up near Hull. My father was enticed to switch his studies from Medicine in Accra to Dentistry in Manchester in the 70s, to address a shortage of dentists at the time within the NHS. It is because of this decision my family are here. I proudly straddle two cultures- that of my heritage and my birth, and identify as a British Ghanaian.

Black British culture and business is something my sister and I promote daily on our Instagram page @afro_leads. It is through this endeavour that I have become aware of many of the following inspirational people:

  • Mary Seacole (1805 -1881) – This magnificent woman of Jamaican and Scottish heritage self-funded her own passage in 1866 to be part of the war effort during the Crimean War and set up her “British Hotel” to care of wounded military personnel. Such was her care and compassion that she became known as “Mother Seacole”.
  • Dr Harold Moody (1882 -1947) – A Jamaican physician whom immigrated to the UK to study medicine in 1904. Despite finishing top of his class in 1910, racial prejudices prevented his employment, so he set up his own practice in Peckham in London in 1913. He founded the “League of Coloured Peoples” in 1931 to fight racial injustice and obtain civil rights for all. This league was able to achieve amongst other things, the overturning of the discriminatory Special Restriction Order (or Coloured Seamen’s Act) of 1925. Many Black and Asian British Nationals whom had no proof of identity had been made redundant as a direct result of this act being in place (sounds familiar doesn’t it- history sadly does seem to repeat itself!).
  • Daphne Steele – a nurse whom migrated from British Guyana in 1951. Despite racism both within the workplace from colleagues and from patients she worked her way up and became Britain’s first Black Matron in 1964 when she was appointed at St Winifred’s Hospital in Ilkley.
  • Miss Samantha Tross – became Britain’s first Black female Orthopaedic Consultant Surgeon in 2005. She was born in Guyana. Oh to have been aware of her accomplishment as I was completing medical school- a powerful, shining example!
  • Doctor Martin Griffiths – a Consultant Trauma Surgeon and the NHS’s first Clinical Director for Violence Reduction. He has been instrumental in setting up a scheme which provides support to patients injured via gang-related violence. This intervention has led to the number of people returning with further injuries to fall from 45% to less than 1% in six years- incredible!
  • Dr Omon Imohi – multi-award winning GP, transformational speaker, life coach, founder of Black Women in Health, author and recently elected RCGP Council Member. An incredible force, truly elevating and is improving representation in Primary Care Leadership.
  • Malone Mukwende – this now third year medical student at St George’s University, developed a guide I have been lamenting the lack of since I started my medical career in 2001. The difference between him and I? Malone has done something about it and produced a handbook which illustrates clinical signs of various conditions in black and brown skin! His efforts to “decolonise the curriculum” will benefit himself, other clinicians and most importantly patients.
  • Dr Leanne Armitage – now a foundation doctor who started The Armitage Foundation as a medical student to practically and positively inspire young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnic groups to study medicine. She was awarded the Queen’s Young Leader award in 2018.
  • Dr Ola Brown - a British Nigerian and the founder and CEO of Flying Doctors Nigeria, West Africa’s first indigenous air ambulance service, which was established in 2007.
  • Dame Elizabeth Anionwu DBE – Professor of Nursing and founder of the first sickle cell and thalassemia counselling centre in the UK.
  • Professor Jacqueline Dunckley-Bent OBE - Head of Maternity at NHS England, also part of the maternity team which delivered Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
  • Mrs Lynette Richards-Lorde - the UK’s first Black Director of Nursing. Knowledge of these heroes within healthcare makes my presence in it relevant; I can relate to them and am uplifted. I know I am also a part of this history. My being in my role will further “normalise” having Black doctors for people inside and outside of the culture. The more inclusive our profession becomes at ALL levels, the better represented and served our practice populations will be. 

Happy Black History Month.
Julie

Our Partners

Bradford Council: Home
CMBC_-_Logo_carousel.png
Kirklees Council
Leeds City Council
North Yorkshire Council
Wakefield Council
Airedale Foundation Trust
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust
Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust
Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust
Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Leeds Community Healthcare (LCH)
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust
South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Yorkshire Ambulance Service
NHS England
Healthwatch
Locala Community Partnerships CIC
Spectrum Community Health CIC
UKHSA_-_Logo_carousel.png OHID_-_Logo_carousel.png

Footer information

Privacy notice | Accessibility statement | Modern slavery statement

Accessibility tools

Text size:
Contrast:
Frank Ltd.
Return to header