To mark the time of year when thousands of people would ordinarily be gearing up for Pride season, the highlight of the LGBT+ calendar, NHS England is hosting its first-ever ‘Virtual Pride’ to celebrate and involve all of its LGBT+ staff and their allies, and have extended the invite to the whole of the NHS.

Significant progress has been made towards LGBT+ equality. However, research evidence indicates that we still have much to do.​ We'll be marking this special occasion, acknowledging and appreciating all our LGBT+ colleagues.

Rachel Forrest, NELFT LGBT+ Staff Network Co-Chair, said: “I think we can all agree that 2020 has not been as any of us expected. We have all been affected in some shape or form either personally or professionally. Pride is a time to celebrate our diversity and the achievements of our community.

 “Whilst this year our celebrations are going to look very different we can all still be united in our commitment to celebrate all forms of diversity through our actions; our words and the choices we make. Here’s to looking forward to an even bigger celebration in 2021. Happy Pride and stay safe.”

At NELFT, we are marking NHS Virtual Pride today with the release of our NELFT Coming Out guide.

‘Coming out’ is a process of understanding, accepting, and valuing your sexual orientation/identity. This can mean sharing with others that you are lesbian, gay, bi and/or trans (LGBT). Coming out can be a very difficult process and the NELFT ‘Coming Out’ guide will share advice and tips to help anyone going through this process.

NELFT's Coming Out guide can be viewed here: Coming Out Guide [pdf] 3MB

We are also sharing a selection of videos on our social media platforms to mark Virtual Pride 2020. Follow on twitter: @nelft and instagram: nelft_nhs.