New organisation formed in UK to ‘raise profile’ of nurses from Kerala and to support newly arrived

LONDON May 31: Nurses from Kerala need more representation at the highest levels of the NHS, nurses from the region have said as a new group to support them is set up.

Kerala, one of India’s smallest states, trains the majority of the country’s nurses and many of those nurses migrate to other countries to work including the UK. Despite representing a large part of the NHS workforce, Keralan nurses feel they are underrepresented at decision-making levels.

To help address the gap, a new group called the Alliance of Senior Kerala Nurses (ASKeN) is being launched in June.

ASKeN will help nurses from Kerala in applying for promotions, offer mentoring and pastoral support for new arrivals from Kerala, and provide peer support for those already in leadership positions.

The overarching aim will be to increase representation of people from Kerala at Band 8a and above.

ASKeN, which will seek to work in partnership with existing groups that already represent Keralan nurses including the UK Malayalee Nurses Association, formally launches at the House of Commons on 8 June.

At its inaugural event, ASKeN will host Dame Ruth, as well as Duncan Burton, deputy chief nursing officer, Samantha Donohue, assistant director of NMC, Jennifer Caguioa, head of global for Florence Nightingale Foundation, among other high profile nursing figures.

Bejoy Sebastian, a Keralan nurse who came to the UK 12 years ago, will be general secretary of the new group.

Bejoy, a senior nurse at his trust in Greater London, told Nursing Times: “There aren’t many Kerala people in senior management, compared to the number of Keralite nurses in the NHS.

“The proportion [of Keralan nurses working] in practice is not translated into leadership. There’s something holding us back. A few of us made it to that level but then we don’t have enough peer support now.

“Of course, when we’re trying to make it there, our colleagues are helpful, but you often see many British nurses benefit from support inside and informal contacts.

“I didn’t have a clue when I was a band 5 nurse.”

As well as career support for those trying to climb the Agenda for Change pay spine, Mr Sebastian said ASKeN hoped to play a vital role for new arrivals and those already in management positions.

He explained that many senior nurses from Kerala were already supporting colleagues on an informal basis, but the launch of the group would mean they could now work as a collective.

“We have all been informally supporting a lot of people,” he said.

“Everywhere we are in high-level positions, we are the first ones in our trust to be in that role as a Keralite nurse.

“And ever since we became that senior person, a lot of people in the community contact us with stories of discrimination, harassment, bullying.

“That’s why it’s important we come together and make this group – we have limited capacity on our own but as a network we can share and balance that load.”

Bejoy Sebastian also said the group would promote information about union membership to new arrivals from Kerala, as many did not realise they were allowed to join one.

Leena Vinod, ASKeN co-chair, said the organisation’s aim was to give Keralan nurses a “national and strategic” voice and hoped to work alongside NHS England.

The first step, Leena Vinod said, would be chief nursing officer Dame Ruth May’s attendance at ASKeN’s launch event next week.

“We have key influential people supporting us,” said Leena Vinod.

Expanding on the group’s ambitions, she said: “We want leadership and management development for people from Kerala to go further in career progression, and to mobilise that progression to inspire junior nurses lower down.

“This will include a project targeting band 7 nurses, and those newly arrived. We want to get a big section of band 5s, who in 20 years might not progress at all, forward.

“We will also do workshops involving key leaders, networking, and make sure that cascades down.

“We really want to raise the profile of Kerala nurses because we deserve it, and we want to make sure that gap is closed, so management is representative of the population working as nurses.”