Supporting the NHS - Cardiff & Vale University Health Board

On Wednesday the 19th of February 2025, we visited the Cardiff and Vale Perinatal team at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary. We delivered this session to 24 members of staff over the course of a whole day.

The day started with some group work where we looked at multiple different topics such as what racism is, what are racial microaggressions, appropriate and inappropriate language and terminology.

For racial microaggressions we looked at names, the importance of pronouncing names in the correct way. We also looked at the stereotypes faced by certain communities and how these stereotypes are formed in society and how that influences our behaviour.

We explored healthcare workers experience in providing care for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women in neonatal assessments in relation to neonatal jaundice. Babies with darker skin tones have an increased risk of jaundice as it is more likely to go undetected or not be identified adequately through the visual assessments. Early treatment in cases of jaundice is crucial as untreated jaundice can lead to severe health complications such as seizures, learning disabilities, hearing difficulties and brain damage. Many of the current guidelines use terms such as “pink”, “pale” or “blue”, however, those same guidelines do not mention anywhere how different these colours might look on darker skin.

The workshop also explored how to challenge racism in the workplace and how to be an anti racist organisation. As the day went on, some of the staff members shared their own experiences of racism.

Leading on from that, we also spoke about Immigration and how a large percentage of NHS workers are foreign born and were asked to come to the UK to help support the NHS.

Overall, we felt like the day was very productive and the staff seemed open to discussion. We would like to thank The Cardiff and Vale Perinatal Mental Health service for giving us the opportunity to provide training to the staff.