Stakeholder Engagement Advisory Group

Sir Professor Patrick Vernon OBE FRHistS is a nationally recognised campaigner, cultural historian, author, broadcaster, and public leader whose work over the past three decades has transformed debates on racial justice, health inequalities, cultural heritage, genealogy, and community empowerment.

Awarded a Knighthood in the 2026 King’s Birthday Honours for services to racial equality, Patrick is widely recognised as one of Britain’s leading advocates for socal justice, health equity, and Black British history. He is best known as the architect of the campaign for a national Windrush Day and founder of the award-winning 100 Great Black Britons movement, which has transformed public understanding of Black British history and achievement.

Patrick is currently Pro-Chancellor for Health at the University of Wolverhampton, Chair of Hackney Thinking Spaces, Convenor of the Windrush 100 Network, Chair of the Windrush Memorial Anchor Foundation, and UK South Representative for the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council.

He previously served as Chair of NHS Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board (BSol ICB), becoming the first Non-Executive Director for Inequalities appointed to an Integrated Care Board in England. He is also a former Chair of Citizens’ Voice at the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB), former Chair of the Walsall Together Partnership Board, and former Non-Executive Director of Healthwatch England, Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust.

A Clore Fellow and Winston Churchill Fellow, Patrick is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Imperial War Museums. He has also been an Associate Fellow in the Department of History of Medicine at the University of Warwick.

Patrick has more than thirty years’ experience working across public health, mental health, heritage, race equality, and community development. He was a senior civil servant in the Public Health Division at the Department of Health, where he led work on health inequalities and community engagement. During this period, he was seconded to the Local Government Association as an adviser on health inequalities, supporting local authorities to address health disparities and improve population wellbeing.

His career has included senior leadership roles with Black Thrive, the Afiya Trust, MIND, the National Housing Federation, NHS England’s Equality and Diversity Council, Brent Health Action Zone, and the Centre for Ageing Better, where he served as Associate Director for Connected Communities. He also served as Independent Chair of Westminster Partnership for Race Equality, playing an important role in supporting relationships between communities and public services following the 7/7 bombings.

A former Hackney councillor between 2006 and 2014, Patrick has also served on ministerial advisory groups on mental health under both Labour and Coalition governments. Throughout his career he has worked across government, local authorities, the NHS, charities, and community organisations to promote health equity, social justice, and stronger community engagement.

Patrick is the founder of Every Generation Media and the award-winning 100 Great Black Britons campaign, which has inspired educational programmes, publications, exhibitions, films, and community projects across the UK and internationally. Widely recognised as one of Britain’s leading experts on African and Caribbean genealogy and family history, he has played a pioneering role in promoting Black British history, family history, and cultural heritage.

In 2020, he co-authored the bestselling book 100 Great Black Britons with Dr Angelina Osborne. In 2024, he co-authored Black Grief and Healing with Dr Yansie Rolston, a groundbreaking anthology exploring inequality, trauma, loss, and healing in Black communities.

Patrick is best known as the architect of the campaign for a national Windrush Day. Since 2010 he has led the movement to secure official recognition of the Windrush Generation and played a significant role in exposing the Windrush Scandal in 2018, helping to bring national attention to the injustices experienced by the Windrush Generation and contributing to major policy change.

In 2020, Patrick co-founded the Majonzi Fund, providing grants to families and community organisations to commemorate people from Black and racialised communities who died during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also developed the Windrush family history board game in partnership with Focus Games.

Patrick is Patron of ACCI, Patron of Nafyisat, and Patron of the Enfield Caribbean Association. He is a former Patron of Santé and former Vice Chair of the Bernie Grant Trust. He is also a Trustee of British Future and a member of the Church Commissioners’ Oversight Group on Reparations and Healing.

His achievements have been widely recognised. Patrick was awarded an OBE in 2012 for services to tackling health inequalities among ethnic minority communities and received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Wolverhampton for his contribution to public service, migration history, genealogy, and equalities.

Recognised as one of Britain’s leading campaigners, Patrick has been named by British Vogue as one of Britain’s most influential campaigners, included in the Powerlist of Britain’s most influential Black people, and recognised by the Health Service Journal as one of the most influential Black, Asian and minority ethnic leaders in healthcare.

A sought-after keynote speaker, broadcaster, and commentator, Patrick regularly contributes to national and international discussions on health, heritage, race, migration, genealogy, ageing, leadership, and social justice.

Anita believes that people and communities hold the expertise to shape the systems that serve them. She creates the conditions for their voices to be meaningfully and fairly represented in research, policy, and ultimately the very decisions that impact their lives. She supports the shift toward more equitable, responsive, impactful, and sustainable infrastructures by embedding trauma-informed practice and whole-systems approaches into her work.

Experienced in frontline mental health practice and academic research, Anita brings holistic, creative, and evidence-based lenses to tackle the root causes of systemic and racial inequality. Her work includes: 

• Community-led research projects (Race on the Agenda; Ada Lovelace Institute) 

• Evaluating complex community and place-based interventions (Dartington Service Design Lab) 

• Drawing on her lived experience of perinatal mental illness within advisory, committee, and leadership roles (NHS Race & Health Observatory, UKRI Public Mental Health Consortium, King’s College London, NICE) 

• Conference/panel presentations, podcasts, and publications  

You can learn more about Anita on her LinkedIn profile. 

Bren spent some time in the Royal Navy, he has a Batchelor of Science and master’s degree and has been a member of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s Public Health Advisory Committee and Co-Chair of the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) eQuality Voices group. He is presently the Public Member of the CQC’s Experts by Experience Programme Board, working with the NHS Leadership Academy/Health Education England on community and neighbourhood voice, and presently leads a national pilot on how national bodies across health and social care better engage with the local community around what matters to them. Born and residing in Gloucestershire, Bren has spent the last 24 years volunteering  and supporting a number of local health and well-being activities at community level. During this time, he was the carer for his mother with chronic illness. He continues to volunteer as an informal advocate with and for people and communities and leads a number of local and national connectivity initiatives (and vice versa) across health and social care.

He is a member of his local GP Patient Participation Group, supporting an ethnic minority community led mentoring programme with the NHS. Bren’s area of focus has always been on hearing, involving, and taking action on the voices of people who may otherwise not feel they are heard or understood. In doing so he has resourced a number of local community initiatives and supported many diverse community organisations. Persistent and constructively challenging of himself and others, in June 2019 Bren was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours with a British Empire Medal for his services to volunteering, public services and the community.

Charles is Chief Officer of the Caribbean & African Health Network (CAHN).

He sits on local and national governance boards including Greater Manchester Voluntary Community & Social Enterprise (VCSE) Leadership Group, Coalition of Race Equality Organisations, and Governor at Manchester Foundation Trust.

Charles works to bring equity and fairness across a range of important health and wellbeing issues for people of the Caribbean and African Diaspora.

He is involved in work that influences the research, policy and practice agenda at local, regional and national levels.

Some of his specialist work is focused on Democratic Participation, Female Genital Mutilation, HIV, Domestic Violence, Modern Slavery, Hate Crime, and Forced Marriage.

Charles is a member of the NHS England Clinical Reference Group for HIV and also a member of the HIV Prevention England Steering Group.

He is also a Pentecostal Minister who is passionate about engaging faith leaders especially African pastors and organising health events such as HIV testing and organ donor recruitment in churches on Sundays.

Clenton is a disabled person with lived experience of health and social care, he employ’s his own personal assistant, and looks after his mum’s personal budget which his mum uses for her own personal assistances. Using his knowledge, experience and energy he helps people that need support to have a good life.

Clenton’s focus is on social justice and social change in society and the means by which people act and react to the environment through their many different identities .

Clenton currently has many roles, Chair of the Think Local Act Personal Partnership Board, member of the Coalition for Personalised Care and member of the Social Care Sector COVID-19 Stakeholder Group.

Clenton is also a member of the NHS Assembly, set up to oversee the NHS Ten Year Plan; the current chair of Quality Matters; a trustee of the Race Equality Foundation; and ambassador for Disability Rights UK. He is a director of Community Navigator Services CIC; and a Skills for Care Ambassador. He works as a consultant, auditor, trainer, and coach on inclusion, equality, disability and social justice and was named in Disability News Services’ list of influential disabled people. In his spare time, he supports Birmingham City Football Club.

Emma Bray is an Outreach Worker and Campaigns Officer at Friends, Families and Travelers (FFT) which is a national charity that works on behalf of Gypsy, Roma and Traveler communities.

Emma has been an outreach worker for ten years. Her main roles are health improvement and campaigns work. Emma is passionate about her job and community, coming from a Traveler background herself and now living on a permanent site with her family.

Emma believes that lived experience as well as professional can offer a unique insight and understanding into health inequalities and barriers. Emma’s roles include Health Champion, Stop Smoking Advisor, Royal Society of Public Health Trainer and others.

Emma also has a wealth of experience in delivering inclusive services training to statutory and third sector organisations. Emma is passionate about tackling maternal health inequalities and mental health inequalities in Gypsy and Traveller communities.

Farzana has a portfolio pharmacy career spanning primary and secondary care, education, and workforce development, with extensive system-level expertise in equality, diversity and inclusion, health inequalities, and governance. 

She was an NHS England (HEE) Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Clinical Fellow in 2022/2023 and is currently Pharmacy Faculty Workforce Lead for Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care System (ICS), as well as Chair of the Midlands ICS Workforce Leads Community of Practice, supporting regional collaboration to build a sustainable and inclusive pharmacy workforce. She also practises as an independent prescriber in urgent primary care, maintaining a strong connection to frontline services. 

As a founding member of Muslim Doctors Cymru, Farzana has led initiatives to increase Covid-19 vaccine uptake in ethnic minority communities, improve representation in stem cell registries, and enhance diversity in clinical trials. Her advocacy includes contributing evidence to the Senedd Inquiry on the Anti-racist Wales Action Plan. 

She champions culturally safe care through education, delivers workshops on microaggressions and health inequalities, and brings governance experience from a 12-month Non Executive Director shadowing placement with the Life Sciences Hub Wales Board. 

Fatima is known regionally and nationally for actively championing patient involvement, the recognition of carer support and challenging inequalities in Health and Care.

Fatima currently works as a system leader within the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership and is the director of the Personalised Care and Unpaid Carer Programmes. The latter of which has recently won a national award.

She has recently been appointed as a Non-Executive Director at Sheffield Children’s Hospital. Fatima also works nationally with NHS England and is a member of the NHS Assembly and Kings Fund General Council.

Fatima has been nationally recognised for her work in the voluntary and community sector developing the community interest company Investors in Carers which was shortlisted for a Heath Services Journal Award and as Chair of Healthwatch Kirklees which was nationally recognised by Healthwatch England for its work.

Her experience also includes working within the NHS as a Lay Member for Patient and Public Involvement and within the Local Authority as a Scrutiny Co-optee with responsibility for scrutinising the decisions and policies that are being made by the Council and key partners including local health service providers and commissioners.

Felicia has over 31 years nursing experience, specialising in general Intensive Care/Cardiac Nursing. Trained at University College London Hospitals, she is an Associate Director of Nursing at Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Currently interim Chair of the Chief Nursing Officer for England BME Strategic Advisory Group Felicia holds an MSc in Human physiology and has always been interested in Education & Development. She has held various roles such as Research Nurse, Practice Educator/ Practice Development Lead Nurse. During her tenure she held a part time Lecturer Practitioner post at London South Bank University.

Concurrently, Felicia secured the post of Modern Matron/Divisional Senior Nurse at The Heart Hospital (THH) for six years where she established the THH as a beacon of best practice & innovation within the Trust. Felicia took up the post of Head of Nursing for Surgery & Critical Care at Ealing Hospital, followed by Director of Nursing positions at BMI Clementine Churchill Hospital and Whipps Cross hospital, London.

Felicia has always had a passion for clinical practice ensuring that patients as well as staff are at the centre of our care. She believes that if the workforce is not highly valued then this is reflected in poor care delivery.

As a Director of Nursing, Felicia performs clinical duties, being highly visible both in and out of uniform. She is committed to supporting, coaching and mentoring individuals internally and externally. She considers mentoring as a fundamental responsibility as it allows individuals to examine self, grow and develop a global vision.

Jacqui is an independent health and social care consultant, with lived experience, and a background in adult mental health commissioning as well as community and family social work.

She was vice-chair of England’s Mental Health Taskforce, which collaboratively developed the 5 Year Forward View for Mental Health (NHSE) and its transformation of mental health service policy and provision. Its focus on reducing mental health inequalities was further strengthened in the NHS Long Term Plan for Mental Health. She is also President of the Mental Health Foundation UK.

Jacqui has co-led the Mayoral ‘Thrive London’ since its inception. Jacqui is an elected Councillor where she is cabinet member for jobs, skills and community safety having previously jointly held the health and adult social care cabinet portfolio.

She is co-founder and chair of Lambeth’s Black Thrive Partnership attending to the health of local black Caribbean and African citizens. Jacqui is a director of Black Thrive Global, which has evolved from the partnership to take forward its legacy. Jacqui was an advisory panel member of the 2018 Independent Mental Health Act Review (MHAR) and co-chair of its African & Caribbean Working Group (MHARAC).

Jacqui is currently the Mental Health Equalities Advisor for NHSE, and Health Education England (HEE), leading on the Advancing Mental Health Equalities Strategy and the development of the Patient & Carer Race Equality Framework as recommended in the MHARAC and subsequently agreed by the government.

In 2019 Jacqui was appointed the Mental Health Equalities Champion for England to support the implementation of the MHAR recommendations.

Jacynth is the Managing Director of Inspiring Hope (IH) specialising in the area of equality and diversity.

She has over 40 years of experience of working in and with the NHS as a clinician, manager and Executive Director of Nursing. She is a former Associate Non-Executive Director on the Board of HEE and Non-Executive Director (NED) of West Midlands Ambulance NHS FT.

She currently serves as a NED in Birmingham Community Health NHS Trust where she chairs the workforce and organisational development committee.

Inspiring Hope were commissioned to design and deliver a bespoke solution to developing WRES Experts across the system.

Jacynth has extensive experience of design and delivery of positive action programmes in order to build capacity and capability amongst diverse workforces.

She uses personal and professional development to deliver better quality outcomes for the workforce, service users, patients, clients, carers and end users.  IH values embody the way Jacynth approaches each assignment, transforming mindsets and changing behaviour to achieve fairer outcomes.

Jacynth received an MBE in His Majesty the King’s 2025 New Year Honours List for services to nursing.

Jenni qualified as a nurse in the Philippines in 1994 and was among the first Filipino nurses who came to work in the UK in 1999. She started in Haematology at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital and has worked in the NHS for the last 21 years within oncology, research and practice development.

Since 2009 as Lead IV Practitioner, she started a vascular access service at King’s College Hospital NHSFT, published peer reviewed articles and was awarded the British Journal of Nursing ‘IV Therapy Nurse of the Year’  in 2016  for implementing Project HANDS. She presents at various national and international conferences and sits on various advisory boards.

Passionate about leadership and staff support, she completed an MSc in Healthcare Leadership in 2016. As BAME Network Engagement Lead, she believes in equality and the strength of diversity so that teams can deliver the best care for our patients. She initiated Project KINs (King’s International Nurses) How are we doing? to improve the support of newly arrived overseas nurses.

Jenni received an MBE in His Majesty the King’s 2025 New Year Honours List for services to nursing.

John Walsh has worked in the NHS for 25 years. He worked with  the homeless and people in the asylum system in Leeds for 22 years. This work was mainly on the streets with homeless people. He managed the homeless service for several years. A service that was  rated outstanding by the CQC.  John presently works as the ODI (Organisational Development and Improvement) Lead at Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust. This work involves culture change, leadership and systems work.

John is the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian for the Trust and the Leeds GP Confederation.  He co-leads the System Leadership development work in Leeds and work with the West Yorkshire & Harrogate Partnership on health inequalities and personalised care. He sits on the Yorkshire RCGP Faculty. John has received  a number of awards which include Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust Clinician of the Year (2013); The Yorkshire and Humberside Leadership Academy Community Leader of the Year  (2013 ); Yorkshire Evening Post Community Health award (2015); Yorkshire Evening Post Overall Judges Winner award (2015); and the Ads the Poet award for Compassion in Health (2015). In 2015 he was awarded an honorary doctorate at Leeds Beckett University for city partnership work and work with homeless people.  He also received a special award from practice nurses across England for supporting the work of Practice Nursing in 2015.

Karla (she/her) is Head of Inclusion, Organisational Development and Experience at Berkshire Healthcare, with extensive experience across Local Authority, Higher Education, trade unionism and voluntary activism.  

Drawing on her lived experience of racism, socio-economic disadvantage, disability, caring, and motherhood, Karla is deeply committed to equity and social justice. She focuses on improving governance, developing inclusive cultures, and tackling systemic inequities, with anti-racism as a driving principle. Karla has led the creation of self-organised groups and lived experience forums, empowering communities and colleagues to shape trusted change. She dynamically champions grassroot activism and decolonisation within education, ensuring diverse perspectives are reflected in curricula and practice. 

Karla’s leadership amplifies underrepresented and under-resourced voices to challenge barriers, making race equity and fairness expected realities in healthcare and beyond. 

Melissa started her career with Centrica PLC where she worked for 10 years before moving to the public sector. She now works as a diversity consultant providing advice and designing and delivering projects across both blue-chip private sector and public sector organisations.

Melissa has delivered a broad range of strategic projects using her extensive knowledge of cultural diversity, specifically as it relates to establishing an inclusive positive workplace culture.

Melissa advises brands on how to achieve greater diversity internally within their organisations as well as with publicity, marketing and advertising campaigns.

Melissa has particular expertise in developing diversity programmes in response to peoples’ experiences in the workplace and supporting boards to drive change. She regularly provides advice to clients and develops bespoke strategies across all diversity strands along with training sessions for boards, leadership teams and the wider organisation. Recently, she has been working within the NHS and regularly speaks at conferences delivering talks on race.

As a member of the Stakeholder Engagement Advisory Group through his experience as an NHS service user, Simeon contributes with a voice which originates from outside of the organisation. He believes that his most recent experiences of being a Quality Assurance Manager for a social housing organisation, and a researcher for a social and market research agency, will provide useful and practical insights to aid the group in its discussions. Simeon is also eager to apply the knowledge he gained whilst studying for his BSc in Psychology, and his ongoing studies in Social and Public Policy (MSc). He is confident that these academic experiences will also offer valuable insights to the group.

In his 40+ years of activism, Stafford has been in the front line of the ‘front lines’ in the battle against Institutional racism. From his time spent working on the Broadwater Farm Estate in the 1980s to his current post, Stafford has always been an ardent advocate for racial equality and social justice.

Stafford has worked as the Director of the Bernie Grant Trust’s Community Leadership Programme where he designed and delivered Community Leadership Training programmes to members of black communities in Manchester, Liverpool and in several different locations across London.

He then went on to work as a Community Engagement Advisor in the Equalities Unit at the Department of Health where he wrote the guide: ‘A Dialogue of Equals’ to support the NHS to improve its track record in engaging with communities who were perceived to be ‘hard to reach’ by NHS planners.

He has also worked with the National Social Inclusion Programme as a community engagement advisor. Stafford was also a Thinking Partner on the NHS Race for Health Equalities Programme; a programme geared to improving the ability of Primary Care Trusts to deliver improved and culturally sensitive services to local BME communities. In this role he worked with PCT’s in Birmingham, Luton and Haringey.

Stafford has also been a member of the Department for Communities & Local Government’s Community Forum where he advised department leads on the impact of Government policies on marginalised communities. He is currently the Director of Tottenham Rights CIC and an Associate Consultant at the Kings Fund. Stafford occasionally writes articles for the Guardian Newspaper on matters relating to the black community, injustice and inequality.

Dr. Varadarajan Kalidasan is an experienced paediatric surgeon who trained in India, Australia and Ireland before becoming a consultant at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in 1997.

He has been on the RHO Stakeholder Engagement Advisory Group since its inception.  He has held various NHS roles such as Co-Director of the Surrey and Sussex Comprehensive Clinical Research Network (CLRN) and Director of Medical Education in his Trust in Brighton.

Currently, he is a Governor at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust and also a Non-Executive Director on the Board of Sussex Cricket.  He is a member of the International Affairs Committee of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons and an Honorary Education Tutor at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.  He gave up clinical commitments in 2022.

Victoria is Head of Forensic Social Work at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. She has been a social worker for 25 years, working in mental health services and in different service areas, including community services for older adults, as well as practising as an AMHP (Approved Mental Health Professional). She has also worked in CQC and at Social Work England, and is on the steering group of the National Group of Social Work Managers of Secure Services (NGSWMSS).

She is currently a member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, as the Deputy for Kisharon Langdon, a Jewish charity supporting people with learning disabilities and autism. She is also vice-chair of the UK Jewish Social Workers Group which is a Special Interest Group of the British Association of Social Workers. She has written about Jewish experiences and countering antisemitism in chapters in ‘The Anti-Racist Social Worker’ and ‘The Anti-Racist Social Worker in Practice’.

Zulf Ahmed is the Chief Executive Officer of the Kashmir Youth Project (KYP), a long-established community organisation supporting residents across Rochdale and Greater Manchester. He has over 25 years’ experience in local government, education, and community development, including roles with the Learning and Skills Council, the Department for Education, and Rochdale Borough Council. 

Zulf’s work focuses on reducing inequalities, improving access to skills and employment, and strengthening the voice of Global Majority communities. He is committed to partnership working and brings extensive experience of engaging with diverse groups to shape services that reflect real community needs. 

As a member of the Stakeholder Engagement Advisory Group, Zulf offers insight into the barriers faced by Global Majority communities in accessing health, wellbeing, and public services. He is passionate about ensuring that research, policy, and system‑level change are informed by lived experience and grounded in the daily realities of the communities he serves.