Black history is every month: their legacy, our responsibility

Sara Heholt, Clinical Services Manager, Prestige Nursing & Care, and Co-chair of Skill’s for Care’s Global Majority Nursing Network discusses the year-round importance of diversity and inclusion.

For me, Black History Month has always meant something more than a date in the calendar.

It’s a feeling we hear across the Global Majority Nursing Network, hosted by Skills for Care, whenever members from adult social care come together: this history is not a campaign that runs for four weeks. It’s the story of how our profession came to be staffed, shaped and led.

Black history is not something I think about only in October. It’s part of who I am, the communities I belong to and the profession I have chosen. It’s reflected in the people who came before us, the colleagues working alongside us today, and the nurses and care professionals who will follow.

That is why, when I think about Black history, I think about both pride and responsibility.

I’m proud of the contribution Black and other global majority professionals have made to health and social care in Britain. But I also believe we have a responsibility to make sure the opportunities available to the next generation are greater than those available to the generations before them.

Standing on the shoulders of pioneers

When I look at nursing history, I see people who refused to allow barriers to define what they could achieve.

Mary Seacole travelled independently to the Crimea in 1855, where she provided care to sick and wounded soldiers. Her determination to provide care despite the racial and professional barriers she faced continues to resonate with me today.

When the NHS was created in 1948, Britain needed people to help make its ambition of healthcare for all a reality. Professionals came from the Caribbean, Africa, India, Pakistan and across the Commonwealth. They came with skills, knowledge, compassion and aspirations of their own.

Among them were people such as Kofoworola Abeni Pratt, who came to Britain in 1946 to study nursing and was widely recognised as one of the first Black nurses to work in the National Health Service, later became a nursing leader in Nigeria.

Daphne Steele arrived from Guyana in 1951 and, in 1964, became the NHS's first Black matron. For me, her story is particularly powerful because representation matters. Seeing somebody who looks like you in a leadership position can change what you believe is possible for yourself.

Then there is Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, whose work took nursing beyond traditional boundaries. In 1979, she helped establish the UK's first nurse-led Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia Screening and Counselling Centre in Brent, responding to needs within communities that were too often overlooked.

What I admire about these pioneers is that they did not simply work within existing systems. They helped change them.

And behind the names we know are thousands we’ll never know.

They cared for mothers, babies, older people and people experiencing mental illness. They worked in hospitals and communities and became nurses, midwives, health visitors, sisters, matrons, educators and leaders.

Their history matters to me because their legacy created space for people like me and many of the colleagues I work alongside today.

Our story is bigger than the NHS

One thing I feel strongly about is that this history should not stop at the hospital door.

Social care nurses do extraordinary work every day, often without the same public recognition afforded to other parts of the profession.

They manage complex conditions, medicines, deterioration, safeguarding and end-of-life care. They coordinate with GPs and multidisciplinary teams while helping people retain something incredibly important: their dignity, independence and quality of life.

Across social care, I see global majority and international nurses bringing far more than additional capacity to the workforce.

I see clinicians.

I see mentors.

I see managers.

I see educators.

And I see future leaders.

That is why our Global Majority Nursing Network is important to me. Creating a space where people can connect, support one another, share experiences and develop professionally is not simply about networking; it’s about belonging, visibility and having a voice. The network is open to nurses right across adult social care, whatever their role and wherever they are in their careers.

But has representation brought equality?

This is where celebration has to be accompanied by honesty.

We have made progress. I can see global majority nurses working across frontline services, education, management and leadership.

But I also know that being present is not the same as being equal.

The 2025/26 Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard data published by Skills for Care shows continuing inequalities in recruitment, disciplinary processes and workplace experiences for global majority colleagues.

For me, that raises important questions.

Are people genuinely being heard?

Do they have the same access to development and promotion?

Are they supported when they experience racism?

Are our processes fair?

Are talented people being identified, encouraged and sponsored?

And when decisions are being made, who is sitting around the table and whose voice is missing?

These are not always comfortable questions. But if we genuinely want change, we have to be brave enough to ask them.

Turning pride into action

I want Black History Month to be celebratory. I want us to tell these stories with enormous pride.

But I don't want the conversation to end when October ends.

Remembering pioneers is important, but honouring their legacy means looking at what we’re doing for people today.

It means creating transparent pathways into leadership. It means mentorship, sponsorship and development. It means challenging racism when we see it rather than leaving the person experiencing it to challenge it alone.

And importantly, it means holding ourselves accountable.

So, my challenge to leaders across health and social care is personal and simple: look around your table.

Look at who is progressing.

Look at who keeps applying but never gets the opportunity.

Look at who is leaving.

Look at who is facing disciplinary processes.

Look at whose ideas are heard and whose are overlooked.

And then ask why.

Data can tell us where inequality exists, but only people can decide to change it.

I stand on the shoulders of people who challenged expectations, opened doors and demonstrated what was possible. I want the nurses coming behind me to inherit more than inspirational stories. I want them to inherit opportunities.

So let us celebrate our history.

But let us also challenge inequality, sponsor talent, develop future leaders, listen to voices that have been overlooked and keep opening doors.

Because, for me, the greatest way we can honour the pioneers of our past is to make sure the next generation has fewer barriers to break.

Their history is our history. Their legacy is our responsibility.

And that is why, for me, Black history is every month.

If you’re a global majority nurse working in adult social care, the Global Majority Nursing Network is one place to start. You can find out more through Skills for Care.

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