Answering the call

Pictured is my mother, then Beverley Lolita Davis. My mother, an 18 year old from Montego Bay, Jamaica, “answered the call” of the ‘Mother Country’ in the late 1960s and moved to the UK to proudly fill one of many NHS gaps. Thousands of miles from her home, family and culture, my mother took on a role automatically deemed hard to fill, deemed by some to be a burden, an issue. She thrived in both the UK and the NHS throughout her career; she recently retired with years of friends, experiences and memories under her belt. Such was the enriching impact, rather than novelty, of “newcomers” like my mother, that she featured on a BBC FOUR documentary named 'Black Nurses: The Women Who Saved The NHS'.

During the occasionally toxic Brexit battle during the first half of 2016 and most recently seen in the US President elect’s pledge for an “impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall", key themes rang out, highlighting that xenophobia is more prevalent than ever. From the ‘Leave’ campaign’s podiums and self-styled battle buses: curbing immigration and protecting the NHS. What was often overlooked during this divisive period though was just how interlinked and dependent on each other these ideas actually are. Without immigration, without diversity, the NHS would have either changed beyond recognition or even folded long ago. More to the point, without innovation and risk-taking the NHS, like many other service led industries, may have become a completely different animal.

It is still perhaps an ‘untold’ story in many ways, but it’s at the same time no secret to anyone who has been to the hospital either. Underpinned by the core values of finding and developing the right people, with a right to work, no matter of their creed, colour or sexual orientation - when talent and expertise initially appear scarce or ill-fitting. In many respects, the NHS’ approach and solutions mirror the vision of many FM companies’ ethos of identifying, developing talent and building careers in an area that is often overlooked.

People like my mother were in many ways both the foundation and the saving grace of the NHS: as early as 1949, with the ambitious system barely a year old and already strained, the Attlee government reached out across the sprawling British Empire, luring staff from Malaysia, Mauritius and the newly independent India. This was not solely about cut-price international labour, though, it was a question of moving forward innovatively, sound familiar to now?

Even Enoch Powell, of all people, later looked East for a further influx of doctors when he was Health Minister in the early 1960s. 18,000 GPs quickly answered his call. In more recent times, between 2002 and 2007, more than 14,000 nurses from the Philippines registered with the NHS. At my current company, we too face the challenge of nurturing the right people for the right facilities and roles. This post is not really about bygone ideals or even immigration, but rather about learning from the past, from different sectors, from innovations and welcoming diverse experiences - in the aim to improve and bring about sustainable solutions.

That said, with vague promises of restricted movement, immigration controls and widespread NHS reform, the victorious ‘Leave’ campaign perhaps created a sense of paradox for themselves, a similar paradox that may also be seen in the USA. A concept that could also affect our facilities management recruitment strategy long-term. We too have many gaps and opportunities along with a wide net that aims to recruit fairly, diversely and widely. It would be a shame if any company were to miss out on the next Nurse Beverley Davis, wherever they may come from.

Matt