ANALYSIS
In an exclusive interview with Nursing Standard, the RCN’s new president Cecilia Anim tells Alistair Kleebauer about her ambitions for nursing
Ready to back justice with action As a child growing up in Ghana who told her mother at the age of two that she dreamed of being a ‘big wife’ (midwife), incoming RCN president Cecilia Anim always knew she wanted to care for people. Her childhood ambition was achieved when she qualified as a midwife, before moving to the UK where she now has a 37-year nursing career behind her. On January 1, Ms Anim’s career reached a new height when she became RCN president, and the voice of the college’s 430,000 members. Ms Anim’s achievement is especially significant as she is the first black or minority ethnic (BME) nurse to be elected president in the college’s 99-year history. Nevertheless, she is keen that a focus on her race does not overshadow the ‘great honour’ of becoming president. ‘I am the president for all nurses, irrespective of race, colour, creed or sexuality,’ she says. ‘Members voted for me not because of my BME background but because I have been the deputy president for four years and they realised I could do the job.’
Varied involvement
Her stint as deputy president followed a long association with the RCN, which began when she joined the college in 1976. Almost 20 years later she became a steward, before going on to many other posts including branch secretary in London for a decade, then a branch chair and a London board member. This long and varied involvement with the RCN gives Ms Anim a solid grounding in its interests in the midst of turbulent times for nursing and midwifery. With pay
Career highlights 1977 Qualified as a nurse and worked in paediatrics at Hull Royal Infirmary. 1978-80 Staff nurse (part-time) at the Harley Street Clinic, London. 1979-83 Staff nurse (part-time) working in contraception and sexual health care at the Margaret Pyke Centre, London. 1980-85 Staff nurse (part-time) at Raymede Health Centre for Family Planning in London supporting community care and health promotion. 1983-present Clinical nurse specialist in sexual and reproductive health at the Margaret Pyke Centre. 2003-07 GP practice nurse (part-time) in Hampstead, London. disputes raging in England and Northern Ireland and alarms over staffing numbers across the UK, leading the workforce will be challenging. But the daily challenges experienced by nurses all over the UK are more than familiar territory to Ms Anim. Alongside former president Andrea Spyropoulos, she has spent considerable time travelling around the country meeting nurses and hearing about how they provide high-quality care in a tough financial climate. The personal toll experienced by many who are struggling to make ends
meet on restricted pay has become a familiar story. The RCN, along with other health unions, is campaigning for a cost of living pay rise for nurses, condemning the government for refusing to give all NHS staff the 1 per cent consolidated increase recommended by the NHS Pay Review Body. But unlike the Royal College of Midwives, Unison and Unite, the RCN decided not to ballot members on taking strike action.
Lobbying MPs
Defending the decision not to walk out with the other unions, Ms Anim says she feels immense anger and frustration at the government’s intransigence, but striking is not the answer. ‘That leaves patients who need nurses most in the lurch, and no nurse really wants to do that,’ she argues. Instead, the college’s strategy is to target MPs. The college has urged its members to write to and meet their MPs and pile pressure on them to condemn the lack of a cost of living increase for most nurses. This could weigh on politicians’ minds in the coming months, says Ms Anim. ‘With the general election coming, most MPs feel vulnerable, and if you remember that in every constituency there are NHS workers and all NHS workers have got families, then if you upset one person, you upset quite a lot.’ RCN members are being asked from this month to step up their protest by recording the hours they work and requesting payment or time off in lieu for overtime.
14 january 7 :: vol 29RCNi.com no 19 :: 2015 STANDARD Downloaded from by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 20, 2015. For personal use only. NoNURSING other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
ANALYSIS
also decide this year whether to adopt mandatory safe staffing levels in adult inpatient wards in acute hospitals, which could be a ‘yardstick’ for the other UK countries if successful, she notes.
‘IN EVERY MP’S CONSTITUENCY THERE ARE NHS WORKERS SO IF YOU UPSET ONE PERSON, YOU UPSET A LOT’ This year, government action to tackle another of Ms Anim’s areas of interest – discrimination in the workplace – will also get a boost. NHS England plans to introduce a national workforce race equality standard in April, requiring all NHS organisations to demonstrate
their progress on indicators of workforce equality, including how they are addressing low levels of BME staff at board level. The RCN is providing evidence on the equality standard and Ms Anim says it must be backed up with sanctions against poorly performing trusts. ‘On its own, the equality standard is not going to be enough. It needs to be backed up with action, because we have been here before. We do not want the tick-box exercises to continue,’ she says As she embarks on 2015, a year that promises to be as lively as 2014, Ms Anim will be drawing strongly on the qualities she says drive her work – a belief in fairness and justice – to push for a better deal for all nurses NS
‘I WAS KISSED BY RUSSELL BRAND’ Talking to Nursing Standard, Ms Anim says her voice is still recovering from shouting herself hoarse at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) demonstration for fair pay in October – and she laughs at the memory of getting a kiss from comedian and actor Russell Brand. She recalls how Mr Brand, a well-known supporter of numerous social and political causes, brought his own ‘Fair Pay for Nurses’ placard to march in London alongside RCN members. Ms Anim says jokingly: ‘The following day he was at the Houses of Parliament supporting the homeless and giving them pizza. Someone tweeted me and said ‘‘This is the guy you were kissing yesterday – an anarchist”.’ She adds: ‘The TUC march was one of the best demonstrations I’ve ever been on.’ Away from nursing, Ms Anim is ‘very active’ in her community in Kilburn, London, and she is also part of the care team for her daughter, Ruth, who has learning disabilities. Her roles as chair of the governors at a primary school and as a member of the Anglican Church’s deanery of Paddington keep her busy non-stop. Her faith is important to her and she says that whenever she sees a church spire on a family driving holiday, she shouts: ‘Stop the car, I’m going in to pray’. At home she likes to spend time with her husband and daughter, chat on the phone to friends and read non-fiction books, magazines and newspapers. Watching BBC2’s Newsnight is a must, although she misses former presenter Jeremy Paxman – ‘Bring Jeremy back any time!’
JOHN BEHETS
In addition to pushing for a fair pay deal, Ms Anim’s priorities as president will include promoting the value of nursing here and abroad, challenging discrimination in the workplace, and representing members over working conditions. On the latter point, she was pleased to see the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) publish guidelines for safe nurse staffing levels on acute inpatient wards in England. The guidelines include ‘red flag events’, such as delays of more than 30 minutes in providing pain relief, which indicate that staffing levels may not be meeting patient needs. ‘NICE has put us on the right road and I think there will be further improvements,’ Ms Anim says. The Welsh Government will
NURSING :: voluses 29 without no 19 ::permission. 2015 15 DownloadedSTANDARD from RCNi.com by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 20, 2015. For personal usejanuary only. No7other Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
In an exclusive interview with Nursing Standard, the RCN’s new president Cecilia Anim tells Alistair Kleebauer about her ambitions for nursing
Ready to back justice with action As a child growing up in Ghana who told her mother at the age of two that she dreamed of being a ‘big wife’ (midwife), incoming RCN president Cecilia Anim always knew she wanted to care for people. Her childhood ambition was achieved when she qualified as a midwife, before moving to the UK where she now has a 37-year nursing career behind her. On January 1, Ms Anim’s career reached a new height when she became RCN president, and the voice of the college’s 430,000 members. Ms Anim’s achievement is especially significant as she is the first black or minority ethnic (BME) nurse to be elected president in the college’s 99-year history. Nevertheless, she is keen that a focus on her race does not overshadow the ‘great honour’ of becoming president. ‘I am the president for all nurses, irrespective of race, colour, creed or sexuality,’ she says. ‘Members voted for me not because of my BME background but because I have been the deputy president for four years and they realised I could do the job.’
Varied involvement
Her stint as deputy president followed a long association with the RCN, which began when she joined the college in 1976. Almost 20 years later she became a steward, before going on to many other posts including branch secretary in London for a decade, then a branch chair and a London board member. This long and varied involvement with the RCN gives Ms Anim a solid grounding in its interests in the midst of turbulent times for nursing and midwifery. With pay
Career highlights 1977 Qualified as a nurse and worked in paediatrics at Hull Royal Infirmary. 1978-80 Staff nurse (part-time) at the Harley Street Clinic, London. 1979-83 Staff nurse (part-time) working in contraception and sexual health care at the Margaret Pyke Centre, London. 1980-85 Staff nurse (part-time) at Raymede Health Centre for Family Planning in London supporting community care and health promotion. 1983-present Clinical nurse specialist in sexual and reproductive health at the Margaret Pyke Centre. 2003-07 GP practice nurse (part-time) in Hampstead, London. disputes raging in England and Northern Ireland and alarms over staffing numbers across the UK, leading the workforce will be challenging. But the daily challenges experienced by nurses all over the UK are more than familiar territory to Ms Anim. Alongside former president Andrea Spyropoulos, she has spent considerable time travelling around the country meeting nurses and hearing about how they provide high-quality care in a tough financial climate. The personal toll experienced by many who are struggling to make ends
meet on restricted pay has become a familiar story. The RCN, along with other health unions, is campaigning for a cost of living pay rise for nurses, condemning the government for refusing to give all NHS staff the 1 per cent consolidated increase recommended by the NHS Pay Review Body. But unlike the Royal College of Midwives, Unison and Unite, the RCN decided not to ballot members on taking strike action.
Lobbying MPs
Defending the decision not to walk out with the other unions, Ms Anim says she feels immense anger and frustration at the government’s intransigence, but striking is not the answer. ‘That leaves patients who need nurses most in the lurch, and no nurse really wants to do that,’ she argues. Instead, the college’s strategy is to target MPs. The college has urged its members to write to and meet their MPs and pile pressure on them to condemn the lack of a cost of living increase for most nurses. This could weigh on politicians’ minds in the coming months, says Ms Anim. ‘With the general election coming, most MPs feel vulnerable, and if you remember that in every constituency there are NHS workers and all NHS workers have got families, then if you upset one person, you upset quite a lot.’ RCN members are being asked from this month to step up their protest by recording the hours they work and requesting payment or time off in lieu for overtime.
14 january 7 :: vol 29RCNi.com no 19 :: 2015 STANDARD Downloaded from by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 20, 2015. For personal use only. NoNURSING other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
ANALYSIS
also decide this year whether to adopt mandatory safe staffing levels in adult inpatient wards in acute hospitals, which could be a ‘yardstick’ for the other UK countries if successful, she notes.
‘IN EVERY MP’S CONSTITUENCY THERE ARE NHS WORKERS SO IF YOU UPSET ONE PERSON, YOU UPSET A LOT’ This year, government action to tackle another of Ms Anim’s areas of interest – discrimination in the workplace – will also get a boost. NHS England plans to introduce a national workforce race equality standard in April, requiring all NHS organisations to demonstrate
their progress on indicators of workforce equality, including how they are addressing low levels of BME staff at board level. The RCN is providing evidence on the equality standard and Ms Anim says it must be backed up with sanctions against poorly performing trusts. ‘On its own, the equality standard is not going to be enough. It needs to be backed up with action, because we have been here before. We do not want the tick-box exercises to continue,’ she says As she embarks on 2015, a year that promises to be as lively as 2014, Ms Anim will be drawing strongly on the qualities she says drive her work – a belief in fairness and justice – to push for a better deal for all nurses NS
‘I WAS KISSED BY RUSSELL BRAND’ Talking to Nursing Standard, Ms Anim says her voice is still recovering from shouting herself hoarse at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) demonstration for fair pay in October – and she laughs at the memory of getting a kiss from comedian and actor Russell Brand. She recalls how Mr Brand, a well-known supporter of numerous social and political causes, brought his own ‘Fair Pay for Nurses’ placard to march in London alongside RCN members. Ms Anim says jokingly: ‘The following day he was at the Houses of Parliament supporting the homeless and giving them pizza. Someone tweeted me and said ‘‘This is the guy you were kissing yesterday – an anarchist”.’ She adds: ‘The TUC march was one of the best demonstrations I’ve ever been on.’ Away from nursing, Ms Anim is ‘very active’ in her community in Kilburn, London, and she is also part of the care team for her daughter, Ruth, who has learning disabilities. Her roles as chair of the governors at a primary school and as a member of the Anglican Church’s deanery of Paddington keep her busy non-stop. Her faith is important to her and she says that whenever she sees a church spire on a family driving holiday, she shouts: ‘Stop the car, I’m going in to pray’. At home she likes to spend time with her husband and daughter, chat on the phone to friends and read non-fiction books, magazines and newspapers. Watching BBC2’s Newsnight is a must, although she misses former presenter Jeremy Paxman – ‘Bring Jeremy back any time!’
JOHN BEHETS
In addition to pushing for a fair pay deal, Ms Anim’s priorities as president will include promoting the value of nursing here and abroad, challenging discrimination in the workplace, and representing members over working conditions. On the latter point, she was pleased to see the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) publish guidelines for safe nurse staffing levels on acute inpatient wards in England. The guidelines include ‘red flag events’, such as delays of more than 30 minutes in providing pain relief, which indicate that staffing levels may not be meeting patient needs. ‘NICE has put us on the right road and I think there will be further improvements,’ Ms Anim says. The Welsh Government will
NURSING :: voluses 29 without no 19 ::permission. 2015 15 DownloadedSTANDARD from RCNi.com by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 20, 2015. For personal usejanuary only. No7other Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
