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The NIHR Race Equality Public Action Group (REPAG) is a public-facing group committed to improving race equality in health and care research.
On 1 May 2024, REPAG hosted the Connecting Voices Conference. The conference was attended by patient and public involvement leads, researchers, health and care professionals, public contributors, directors of clinical practices, and research directors.
The conference brought together diverse public contributors, speaking from their lived experience, to motivate service improvement in healthcare and research.
The speakers and topics were:
- Royston John, Debunking intersectionality (Intersectionality in health and care research).
- Fay Scott, Reflection piece.
- Joyce Dutch, Living life in colour (Experiences of a neurodivergent person).
- Alan Cheetham, Reality meets aspiration (The social model of disability).
- Asima Akhtar and Farzana Khanom, In conversation (Healthcare from the perspective of Asian women).
- Dee Cooper, Breaking the silence (Building trust with the Romany Gypsy community).
Public contributors worked closely with the REPAG leads in the build up to the conference to prepare. They were also given a choice to take part in Q&A sessions.
Mental health support was made available to everyone as part of the opening housekeeping, as the topics of discussion could be challenging or triggering.
The session was an online webinar, and attendees were asked to submit questions using the chat and Q&A tools. There were two breaks, featuring carefully selected musical pieces reflecting our humanity.
Key insights and learning were captured visually during the conference. The visual summary and a range of different accessible formats are provided below.
Artwork created by Skye McCool. You can visit Skye’s website to find out about her services.
You may share the outputs, but do not change them in any way or use any component parts. We would appreciate if you attribute REPAG and Skye McCool when sharing.
Additional accessible formats
Text-only overview of the visual
A digital illustration capturing key messages and actions from the Race Equality Public Action Group (REPAG) Connecting Voices Conference, held on 1 May 2024. Royston John opened the conference, talking about intersectionality and the need to pay attention to the whole person. Fay Scott read a self-authored poem to prompt self-reflection among the audience. Joyce Dutch shared her experiences as a neurodivergent person. Alan Cheetham spoke about progress in the social model of disability, from his own experiences as someone with a visual impairment. Asima Akhtar and Farzana Khanom spoke about discrimination and positive experiences in maternity services. Dee Cooper shared a self-authored poem about the experiences of the traveller and Romany community. In closing, conference attendees were prompted to share a commitment to action, following the conference.
Audio description of the visual
This is an audio description of the visual summary of the conference. It is 11 minutes long.
It is suitable for people with visual impairments, and anyone else who finds written content to be less accessible. The audio is accompanied by the visual.
Individual speaker snippets
Below we present each talk in a separate visual. This might be helpful for some neurodivergent people, people who find the full visual too busy, or people wanting to share a particular topic on social media.
If you feel any of the information on this page needs amending or would like to request the deletion of this page, please contact us at publicpartnerships@nihr.ac.uk