Thank you everyone who joined us last week for our Annual General Meeting (AGM). The AGM is a formal meeting where we present our annual accounts and report for the previous financial year, but it is also an opportunity to reflect on the previous 12 months and to celebrate our achievements.

Oliver Shanley CEO, NELFT met with Jacqui Van Rossum, our Executive Director for Integrated Care in London, and Marie-Antoinette Ferreira-Pursley, Co-Chair of our Disability Staff Network and co-chair for Dyslexia and Specific Learning Difficulties Network, to talk through the disability support available for NELFT staff and our ambitions to make sure that NELFT is a fully disability inclusive employer.

I have been working with the communications team at NELFT for the past two weeks, on a placement from my usual role as Strategic Communications Manager at NHS England and NHS Improvement. It’s been a great two weeks getting to know the comms team, who have all been so welcoming, and learning a bit more about how communications work in a different part of the NHS.

As part of Black History Month this year, NELFT Knowledge & Library Service worked with the EMN and allies to host a discussion around the book Black, Listed by Jeffrey Boakye. The book is a thought-provoking glossary of terms linked to black British identity, ranging from terms of endearment (‘Queen’) to official terms (police codes). Boakye discusses painful topics with insight and welcome bursts of humour (his section on Quentin Tarantino’s films is well worth a read!). Contributors to the discussion did not need to have read the whole book – as it was non-fiction, there was no danger of spoilers and it’s the sort of book that you can dip in and out of.

I couldn’t start my weekly message without sharing and reflecting on the tragic news about Sir David Amess. I know many colleagues live in Essex and others may have met Sir David through your roles within the NHS. I would like to offer my condolences to his loved ones and all who knew him, and the comments made by his peers and colleagues about his kindness, compassion and tolerance have really resonated with me, particularly in light of the work we are doing across NELFT to embed a just and compassionate culture.