Dame Anionwu Annual Lecture 2024

Hailed as one of the UK's greatest ever nurses, Dame Elizabeth Anionwu has had an incredible career and a monumental impact on the nursing profession. From her early days as a health visitor through to becoming the first ever sickle cell nurse specialist, she has received countless honours & awards for her work, has been made patron to many organisations, including the Sickle Cell Society, and was declared one of the 70 most influential nurses & midwives in the history of the NHS.

Although now retired, Dame Elizabeth 's recent work has focused on the impact of COVID-19 on Black & Asian Communities. She recently became a Pride of Britain awardee and one of the BBC's 100 Women of the Year 2020. Her memoir, Dreams from my Mother, was released in 2021 and was awarded the Order of Merit in 2022.

To celebrate her life achievements, her 75th birthday (which took place in July 2022) and her Honorary Graduate Award, LSBU's Institute of Health & Social Care announced the launch of The LSBU Dame Elizabeth Anionwu Annual Lecture: Celebrating Inclusivity in Nursing & Midwifery.

This event is open to all and we look forward to welcoming you to LSBU. There will be plenty of opportunities for questions, networking & discussion with Dame Anionwu, our guest speakers and LSBU colleagues during and following the event.

The systems we live and work within require conformity, posing a challenge for non-conformists, marginalised, minoritised and ‘othered’ individuals and communities. Ruth Oshikanlu shares her journey to being her authentic self and leader, challenging patriarchy, misogyny, racism, bureaucracy, power bases, cultural, societal and systemic biases and prejudices. Exploring authenticity, the need for it, and the challenges to being one’s true self in systems that are not designed to foster authenticity, Ruth will implore the audience to embrace who they truly are, outlining the individual and collective benefits.

Authenticity and inclusivity are interdependent. Ruth encourages the nursing and midwifery workforce including leaders to create environments that are genuinely inclusive to enable those they lead and work with, to be authentic and step into their individual and collective differences.

Our keynote will be delivered by Ruth Oshikanlu MBE QN FiHV FRCN FRSA FRSPH FAAN FFNMRCSI

Ruth Oshikanlu is the Executive Director of Goal Mind and Abule CIC. She is a multiple award-winning expert nursing, midwifery and health visiting leader and social entrepreneur with almost three decades experience in delivering secondary and community healthcare services in the public, independent and voluntary sectors.

Ruth is a global advocate, pregnancy mindset expert, trainer, speaker, visiting lecturer, mentor and coach; passionate about equity, social justice, trauma-informed approaches to care. She has spent most of her career working with marginalised communities to reduce health inequalities and improve life outcomes. Her previous roles include HIV specialist midwife, Family Nurse at one of the first pilot sites of The Family Nurse Partnership (an intensive home-visiting parenting programme for vulnerable families), and Nurse Leader of The Lewisham Young People’s Health and Wellbeing Service for children aged 10-19 years.

Ruth continues working to reduce racial disparities in health outcomes using nurse entrepreneurship to deliver health improvement projects and services for marginalised communities/populations.

Ruth is the author of Tune In To Your Baby: Because Babies Don’t Come with an Instruction Manual and creator of the Tune In To Your Baby: Pregnancy Without Fear programme. Having had a very challenging pregnancy, almost losing her baby in pregnancy, Ruth has developed a service for anxious pregnant women who have had previous pregnancy loss or have had assisted conception. Ruth is an avid champion of nursing and midwifery professions and has supported many nurses and midwives to become leaders. She has delivered numerous nursing and midwifery leadership programmes.

Ruth is the recipient of several national healthcare and business awards. She is a regular columnist and has published several feature articles in numerous national nursing and healthcare journals. She has also contributed to numerous nursing, leadership and parenting textbooks. Ruth is a Queen’s Nurse, Churchill Fellow and Florence Nightingale Foundation (FNF) Senior Leadership Scholar. Her Churchill travel scholarship focused on trauma-informed approaches to care. She is actively working to reduce the disparity in deaths of Black and Asian women in pregnancy and the perinatal period.

Ruth holds Fellowships of the Institute of Health Visiting, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, Royal Society of Arts, Royal Society for Public Health and the American Academy of Nursing. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the New Year 2019 Honours List as an ambassador for the health visiting profession and for services to community nursing, children and families. She also received an Honorary Doctorate degree from The London South Bank University in November 2019.

In 2020/21, to celebrate The Year of The Nurse & Midwife, Ruth created a platform Nurses&Midwives Talk, to showcase the contribution of nurses and midwives and interviewed over 380 nurses and midwives from around the globe.

Contact details:

Instagram and X/Twitter: @RuthOshikanlu

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-ruth-oshikanlu-mbe-frcn-frsa-frsph-faan-ffnmrcsi-duniv-06b9121b/

Host or Publisher London South Bank University (LSBU)