Percy reflects on progress, opportunity and race equity after 25 years in mental health | News and events

As we go into Black History Month in October, Percy Mupemhi, Operations Manager with Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) reflects on more than 25 years in mental health, the challenges he has faced in his career and the opportunities that have shaped his leadership journey and inspired him to help others.

 

Percy Mupemhi is harnessing the challenges in his career to help build a better future for the growing global majority workforce in healthcare.

As he sees barriers he experienced beginning to come down, his focus is on creating fair opportunities and ensuring people are able to develop and progress based on their skills, experience and potential.

“I feel so empowered to share my experience with people to help them. I never thought I would do this one day, but since I attended NSFT’s People and Culture Committee to share my experience 18 months ago, it has just been opportunity after opportunity. It has increased my confidence and my ability to talk about my journey, to be able to support others,” he said.

Percy came to the UK aged 19 from Zimbabwe, following a family tradition of working in healthcare. He trained at Luton University and qualified as a mental health nurse in 2000, beginning his career with NSFT at the Norvic Clinic, now Northside House Secure and Forensic Service.

Since then, he has worked across a wide range of mental health services, including secure, psychiatric intensive care units (PICU), acute inpatient care, crisis services and community services. Now an Operations Manager in the Great Yarmouth and Waveney locality, Percy is based across Northgate and Carlton Court sites.

“Each area has been so different, so it's been an experience. The challenges that came with each role strengthened my managerial experiences. I value all the areas I've been to. They have made me who I am.”

Percy is open about the fact that career progression has not always been straightforward.
“It has been a challenge and there were quite a lot of barriers when I started out but now I can see most of those barriers opening. For example, you've got a lot of people from global majority backgrounds now who are in managerial roles, like Band 6 and above, and that never used to happen.”

But he added: “I’m not saying people should just be given jobs. You must have the right experience and qualifications. I wouldn't want to be given a job that I haven't got a qualification for.”

He also recognises progress does not mean the work is finished. He is co-chair of NSFT’s Race Equality and Cultural Heritage (REACH) Network and has become increasingly involved in the Trust’s wider work on  race equity.

This includes looking at disparities in recruitment and progression, participating in senior recruitment processes, supporting work looking into the disciplinary processes and taking part in reverse mentoring.

Percy believes that meaningful change requires people to be willing to listen, challenge and learn from different perspectives. His reverse mentoring relationship with Chief Patient Experience Officer and Deputy Chief Executive Cath Byford has been one example of this.
“It's actually being able to walk in each other’s shoes and see how each role works on a day-to-day basis and the different challenges we face.”

Percy's experience of moving to the UK has also shaped the way he supports colleagues who may be navigating a new culture and environment. He said: “I was quite lucky because I had aunties and uncles here. But for other people, there’s a culture shock as it can sometimes not be what they expect.”

Even as recently as 2009, while working in a crisis team, Percy recalls experiences that highlighted how much social attitudes are changing. “A lot of service users in the community would engage well, but then you would get asked, ‘Can I feel your hair?’ That's when I used to have hair,” he laughs.

But he said: “As much as you face challenges, there are some lovely people that I've worked with, very supportive people who have guided me through difficult times and stood up for me.”

He believes the Trust’s work on race equity has helped to build confidence in the workforce. “Staff surveys were highlighting race as area that we needed to work on but then no action was being put in place. Now the executive team is seeing that this is an area of high priority that needs to be addressed. The minute they put strategies into place it began to raise awareness among our colleagues and pull in allies.”

Percy now has family of his own and has been in the UK far longer that he lived in Zimbabwe. His children are 16 and 18 and his ambition for them is to be recognised for who they are and for what they bring. “My daughter will be going away to university, so I would love to hear that she's not being seen as someone different - united with others but taking into consideration her unique skills as an individual.

“I was brought up in a mixed-race family, and I did use to hear about racism in South Africa but not where I was born. I was never exposed to that until I came to the UK. Now, at NSFT, I am seeing there's a passion to improve and that this will be sustained. I'm seeing change and this is the change that I never thought I would ever, ever see.”