Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust and York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust have recently introduced the Rainbow Badge scheme. Despite improving social attitudes in general towards LGBT+ people in the UK, negative attitudes (such as homophobia, biphobia, transphobia) are still widely prevalent. Moreover there are barriers to healthcare services for young LGBT+ people and a recent survey found that 1 in 7 LGBT people avoid seeking healthcare for fear of discrimination from staff (Stonewall, 2018). NHS Rainbow badges are a way to show that the organisation is a non-judgmental and an inclusive place for LGBT+ service users and staff. As a simple visible symbol, the badges can make a big difference for those who may be unsure of the reception they will receive if they disclose their sexuality and/or gender identity.…

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This was the first ‘Living Library’ event that I’d participated in, so I wasn’t really sure what my experience as a book would be. My book was titled ‘Talk to the Hijabi!’, as I wanted to share my lived experiences of being a Muslim woman who wears a hijab (head scarf) living in the UK.…

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Inspired by the Human Library events run by Bolton NHS Foundation Trust and the Living Library event at Wirral University Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust I approached the Head of Diversity, Inclusion and Blended Learning to see whether we could run something similar in our trust. We agreed that it would be a great way to bring staff from different areas of the trust together and enable them to hear the lived experience of colleagues in their own words. To date we have run two half-day events in July and October 2019 and this article aims to share our learning from them.…

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We’ve been asking ourselves lately if we could make our service more accessible and inclusive. What we did wasn’t the result of requests or suggestions from library users. Instead we wanted to have things in place that we did as standard so that we didn’t have to rely on people telling us if something was creating a barrier for them…

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June 2019 saw the annual LYNFEST – a celebration of arts and music at Bradford District Care Foundation Trust’s (BDCFT) Lynfield Mount Hospital. This year’s festival had its widest-ever range of activities and events, including displays of service-user artwork, stand-up comedy, open mic, freestyle rap, performance poetry, musical drama, a gardening competition, a pottery workshop and lots of live music, not to mention a ceilidh! BDCFT library have proactively supported the festival from its inception in 2016 and for the second year running we were privileged to be involved…

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Walking along Oxford Road in Manchester brought back memories of my time studying for an MA in Library and Information Management at Manchester Metropolitan University. I have only visited this part of Manchester a couple of times since graduating and this was my first time on official library business; my first time at the CILIP conference, having received a bursary from CILIP Yorkshire & Humber.…

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