Today, Friday 4 March, is Overseas NHS Workers Day and we’d like to thank all our international staff for their incredible contribution and all of their hard work, particularly over the past few years.
Our hospital community is a diverse one and this week we’ve unveiled a new banner which shows the flags of more than 50 countries, representing the backgrounds and heritage of our team.
We couldn’t run the services we do without the support of talented professionals from overseas, and across all departments and teams we recognise the huge contribution made to support our hospital and the wider NHS, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Our photo shows Staff Governor and Practice Development Nurse Yvonne Hacon - who was born, and trained as a nurse, in Ireland. The banner idea was Yvonne’s initiative as she wanted to showcase the diversity of our workforce at James Paget University Hospital for the public to see.
Yvonne said; “I am extremely passionate about people, the James Paget and the NHS and I am delighted that we now have this banner to celebrate our multicultural workforce. It highlights our diverse organisation for patients and the local community to see and showcases where our team have come from to care for them. It also reminds our staff just how many different nationalities make up the Paget family.”
Our thoughts are particularly with our Ukrainian colleagues at the moment, and it is more important than ever that we recognise the things which bring us together and celebrate the contribution so many nationalities make to our NHS.
We recognise other nationalities may need to be added to the banner in future and will look to update this when we can.