Vote in the NHS 70 Windrush Awards | Our news

Over the last 70 years, the NHS has relied on talent and workforce from around the world to make it work. The Windrush 70 Awards celebrate the contributions of black and minority ethnic (BME) contributions to the NHS.

We're so proud to have members of staff nominated in the Windrush 70 Awards - and we're encouraging our colleagues to show their support by Friday 11 May! 

• Vote for Raliat Onatade

• Vote for Martin Griffiths

• Vote for Oyebanji (Banji) Adewumi

• Beatrice Akyeampong and her daughter Dr Vanessa Apea

• Syringa Ward MDT

• Yusuf Yousuf

How do I show my support?

Anyone can show their support. You need to register online and you will be allocated five thumbs up per category and can click on a thumbs up once on each nomination, except for someone you nominated. The support phase will close on the Friday 11 May, allowing time for the nominations to be shortlisted. The top four supported nominations in each category will make the shortlist.

Read the voting FAQs

Vote for Raliat Onatade

Raliat is distinguished by her versatility, creativity, vision and years of leadership in advancing hospital clinical pharmacy practice in the UK. ‘Inspiring’ is a word often used to describe her. She is regarded by colleagues, her staff and peers for being responsive, visionary, innovative, a strategic thinker and a collaborative leader. She works at individual, local and system-levels to ensure pharmacy services are aligned with local and national requirements, and focused on outcomes. Her roles have involved developing and implementing the vision for pharmacy services, which she undertakes with a passion and motivation far beyond the ‘call of duty’.  Raliat is known for leading departments and colleagues into areas of practice and service where they may not have previously ventured.

Throughout her career, Raliat has embodied the triumvirate of practice, research and teaching. She has introduced several initiatives into hospital clinical pharmacy practice, which have been well ahead of their time, always working collaboratively with others. Not only is she innovative in her conceptualisation of different ways to practice and improve patient care, Raliat also publishes and presents on her work widely, as she is committed to disseminating and sharing experiences, knowledge and expertise. She has published many peer-reviewed articles and countless conference abstracts/posters. Raliat is also very active on Twitter, notably using the platform to share and discuss research and news of interest to the profession. In this way, she has reached hundreds/thousands of pharmacy professionals.  Her main areas of expertise and interest are the quality of pharmaceutical care, medication safety, quality and service improvement, development and innovation and clinical pharmacy outcomes. Raliat teaches and assesses practitioners, postgraduate and undergraduate students, in practice and in the classroom. The effective translation of evidence into practice is a theme throughout her work. Raliat has won several awards for her work. The breadth and spread of the different awards are a testament to her wide-ranging abilities and commitment to hospital clinical pharmacy practice, patient care and the NHS.  Raliat also continues to practice clinically.

Vote for Martin Griffiths

Where the number of people being admitted to hospital with violent injuries is ever increasing, and victims are getting younger, Mr Griffiths has pioneered work with the world-renowned trauma team at The Royal London Hospital to reduce violence in the community. His success extends beyond the NHS’s role in keeping trauma patients alive, to actually preventing them from returning to hospital with further violent injuries. The team has achieved a drastic decrease in the number of young patients readmitted with violent wounds (from 45 per cent to less than one per cent).

Youth violence reduction efforts begin from the moment young people are admitted to The Royal London Hospital - catching them vulnerable at a time when they face their own mortality – and are continued right through to beyond their discharge. In partnership with charity St Giles Trust, patients and their entire families have been rehomed, secured jobs and volunteer placements and been reintegrated with formal education as an example of how long-term assistance can help break the cycle of violence.

Realising that medics have access to injuries which often go unreported to the police - including from people involved in gangs and domestic violence - the team now share data with the police and Government departments enabling them to change policy and put in extra resource. For example, this has seen glass banned from pubs and bars in some areas, successfully reducing the number of glass injuries reported at nearby hospitals. A&E and trauma teams across the country can embrace the example set by The Royal London in supporting community violence reduction work.

In addition, Martin advises the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) on what he has learnt through his engagement with young people, highlighting examples of successful methods to break the cycle of violence in communities. 

In his own time, Martin visits schools and youth centres to educate and influence young people on the reality of injuries caused by knife and violent crime. Speaking openly, he shares rare access to graphic photos of injuries and stories about death in an honest, accessible and powerful way. He creates a moment, in a safe environment, for young people to pause and give thought to ways in which they can manage anger and prevent violence.

Martin also appears regularly in mainstream media to highlight the devastating effects of violent injuries, as well as advocating strong community support for young people. Through this he unites and empowers communities, giving everyone a shared responsibility and role in helping to break the cycle of violence.

Vote for Oyebanji (Banji) Adewumi

Banji is the Associate Director Inclusion at Barts Health. Banji works tirelessly for the Barts Health NHS Trust Equality and Inclusion (E&I) agenda. Everybody references Banji on all matters for E&I, from the Band 2 wanting advice to the CEO wanting information, Banji is always available and will answer with a reassuring smile. Banji has set up the award-winning Career Development Programme for ethnic minority and female staff, the Staff Diversity Network groups, the Listening in Action (LiA) big conversation on E&I which then diversified into the individual site E&I boards and works within the Trust E&I Board. Banji links us all together to ensure each group is known to all and that we work cohesively towards our E&I goals. You will see Banji on any given day travelling across sites with her mini travel case full of notes to attend meetings set by any of the E&I groups. Banji never complains, is always polite, engaging and knowledgeable. During meetings Banji will sit quietly in the group corner, making notes and imparting information on common themes, goals and projects between the groups; always providing a new named person to work with. Banji is a true powerhouse, our fountain of information on all things E&I, determined that the Trust should address the E&I issues that hold us back from being the best that we can be for staff and patients. At Barts Health when it comes to E&I, we do not “Ask Alexa” we ask Banj. Amazing support to the staff networks too! We have a long way to go but we truly are on a real journey.

Banji’s remit includes leading and supporting the delivery of the Trust’s responsibilities in regards to inclusion for both staff and service users. 

Her public sector work experience spans over 26 years which includes twelve years in Civil Service and six years in a London Local Authority where she was the Corporate Policy Lead for Equalities.  She is a trained MBTI facilitator and diversity peer assessor; holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Community Cohesion Management and a Masters in Healthcare Leadership. Thank you Banji.

Vote for Beatrice Akyeampong and her daughter Dr Vanessa Apea

As mother and daughter Beatrice Akyeampong and Dr Vanessa Apea (nee Akyeampong) share many things in common but chief among them is their passionate work around reducing health inequality. 

Beatrice came to the UK from Ghana in 1967 to study nursing at Medway Hospital. Her nursing career took her to Bishop Stortford and Chadwell Heath before settling at King George Hospital where she enjoyed a long and successful nursing career driven by the want to ensure equitable access to care for all of her patients, no matter their background. 

Beatrice’s daughter Vanessa was born in The Royal London Hospital where she later trained as a specialist registrar and in 2011 was appointed as a Consultant in Sexual Health and HIV Medicine, having obtained her Master of Public Health from Harvard University as a Fulbright scholar that same year.  

Inspired by values strongly instilled by her mother, Vanessa is passionate about reducing barriers to engagement in healthcare and has made this the central focus of her clinical work and has developed a large number of initiatives designed to aid healthcare access. She has been pivotal in setting up faith-based HIV testing projects in the East-end of London and also in winning a bid to run a Sexual Health mobile clinic - taking services to those who need them and would otherwise not access this specialist care. She has also set up a multidisciplinary ‘Link’ HIV clinic along with her social work, psychology and specialist nursing colleagues in order to facilitate reengagement of those who find attending HIV care challenging and as such has become a national expert on this subject. 

Vote for Syringa Ward MDT

Syringa Ward at Whipps Cross is a team of professionals who work tirelessly for the safe discharge of their patients. The team is proactive. Syringa has the most discharges in a year and lowest readmission rate of 8.8% (one of the lowest in the country ). The team has also done fundraising for their patients and has received excellent feedback from patient/family members. They were nominated by a family for a Whipps Cross Centenary Award in 2017 and won it. They also won a Barts Hero award in 2018. Deloitte & PWC commented that Syringa ward has the best patient flow rate. This all is due to the excellent teamwork of Syringa Ward.

Vote for Yusuf Yousuf

Yusuf Yousuf was a general porter at the North Middlesex University Hospital in north London for 11 years, and has just taken up a new job at Barts Health NHS Trust.

As a porter, Yusuf’s role means he is often the first point of contact for some patients, and the individual with whom they spend time when they are sometimes at their most vulnerable. He is a rock, and a first class ambassador for the NHS.

In his own words, “I wholeheartedly believe that I make a small but important difference to patients’ experience where I come in contact with them on a daily basis - whether I am guiding them to the right clinic or ward or having a chat with them when I am asked to take them to a procedure, or transfer them to another ward.”