Caribbean workers made their mark on the NHS – not just in terms of hard work and commitment, but also in other innovatory ways.

Elizabeth Yates progressed through the NHS to become head occupational therapist at the Royal Northern Hospital, at which point, “I started making history because I think I was the first black person to get that level of post.” She made history in other ways too. “In 1972 I saw a job advertised and thought, ‘that sounds like fun.’ They were looking for a head occupational therapist to commission the occupational therapist service at Northwick Park Hospital and Clinical Research Centre. I got the job. It was a steep, fast learning curve for me … you had to validate assessment tools and be totally objective in what you were doing. In 1974 we commissioned the physical rehab department. In 1976 we commissioned the psychiatric unit and started the paediatric service. There has always been a shortage of occupational therapists and one of the things I did in the late 1980s was I dropped a note to regional personnel and said, ‘you know, if we are all having problems, why don’t we do regional recruitment overseas?’ I think I must have been one of the first people to go overseas to recruit staff … We advertised in France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway … We managed to get one

occupational therapist for each district. I think some of the changes that came around made me look at how I was using staff. I became much more aware that I had a multi-ethnic and religious group and we needed to look at things like Eid, Jewish and Muslim holidays etc. I felt that it was important that we respected that but as a department we celebrated with everybody, which was fantastic.”

D Anson was the first black person to work in the canteen at the Nottingham City Hospital: “I cooked for nurses, doctors and other staff. The staff were good and if anybody came of my colour who was looking for a job, they would call me in the office to see if they should hire them. Sometimes we cooked for 200 or 300 people, only two of us, just the chef and I … Sometimes they asked what to cook, but they didn’t really have a menu, so you just cooked what you wanted … Wednesday I said to the chef that I’m going to cook curry lamb and rice and I cooked it. When the man that came for the doctors’ dinner brought back the dishes, he said to the chef, the doctors who were Indians said, ‘Compliments to the chef’ and that it was ‘the best dinner they ever had!’”

Derek Harty remembers there were not that many people from the Caribbean working as laboratory technicians at that point. “I trained

under a person from the Caribbean at East Ham Hospital and we had a very good relationship. I spent eight years at East Ham Memorial Hospital.

“After my A levels I decided to go further. I took the higher national certificate in biomedical sciences specialising in chemical chemistry; that was a two-year course. I was successful in achieving that. After that I became a registered laboratory scientist. I still pursued my academic career in further qualifications and I achieved the fellowship of the institute. I took the special examination to qualify me as a fellow of biomedical sciences in 1973.

“At East Ham in 1973 I decided to apply for a senior post and there was not one available for me. The pathologist who had previously worked at East Ham Memorial Hospital he came to work at Whipps Cross Hospital and I asked him if there was a senior post there. He said, ‘Yes, there is.’ So I left to go there. In fact when I was offered the job at Whipps Cross, East Ham did offer to upgrade me but I wanted to see new horizons and experiences. I spent about 10 years in my senior post and was successful in getting a chief technician’s post. Then about 10 years ago I got
the post of technical manager for the biochemistry department and this is the post I have until the present day.”