Chief Nurse, Karen Bonner, and Deputy Director of Quality and Patient Safety, May Parsons, have been recognised in the Health Service Journal’s (HSJ) list of the Black, Asian and minority ethnic figures who will exercise the most power and influence in the English NHS and health policy over the next year.
Both women have been on the prestigious list before.
Karen has made a huge impact during her time at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust. Earlier this year she was awarded an MBE in recognition of her contribution to nursing, as part of the King’s Birthday Honours. From 2017 until 2021 Karen was a member of the NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) strategic advisory group and was highly commended by the Nursing Times in 2019 for her work in diversity and inclusion. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the NHS, the Nursing Times recognised Karen as one of the 75 nurses who have positively shaped the NHS over the past 75 years.
She has always had a personal connection to Buckinghamshire. Her mother – one of the Windrush generation – worked at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, as a nursing aide. Karen is a trustee at Helpforce, which promotes volunteering in health and social care and works with Prostate Cancer UK to raise awareness of the disease which killed her father and disproportionately affects black men.
Deputy Director of Quality and Patient Safety May Parsons made the HSJ’s ‘bubbling unders’ list. She has nursed in the UK for more than 20 years and also set up a foundation to help fellow Filipinos from disadvantaged backgrounds train as nurses. May administered the first Covid vaccine outside of a clinical trial and went on to receive the George Cross, alongside NHSE chief executive Amanda Pritchard, on behalf of the NHS from the late Queen.
Chief Executive at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, Neil Macdonald said: “We are so proud of both Karen and May for being recognised in the HSJ’s list of influential Black, Asian and minority ethnic people in health. They’ve achieved so much in their careers, both at the Trust and beyond, and have always done so with the utmost integrity and a passionate commitment to bringing people with them on the journey towards greater equality and diversity at the NHS.”
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