77 Years of the NHS: A Celebration of Global Collaboration and Diaspora Leadership

This month, the NHS turns 77, a service born in post-war Britain that has since become one of the world’s most recognisable symbols of publicly funded healthcare. From the beginning, the NHS has represented not only a commitment to health equity but a powerful story of shared endeavour across borders.  

Today, 1 in 5 NHS staff report a non-British nationality, linking our health system to over 200 others around the world. From the arrival of the Windrush Generation in 1948 to today’s multinational workforce, the NHS has long drawn strength from across the globe, bringing with it a wealth of expertise too often unrecognised. 

A System Shaped by Global Expertise 

For decades, diaspora NHS staff have brought with them skills honed across borders, clinical expertise, system leadership, public health innovation, and cultural insight. Their experiences enrich care, inform better responses to complex challenges including health emergencies, and make the NHS more resilient and responsive. 

Yet despite this, workforce planning narratives continue to frame internationally trained staff as short-term fixes, rather than long-term leaders. At the same time, the UK’s role in global health is shrinking, with cuts to Official Development Assistance (ODA) and fewer formal routes for meaningful international collaboration. 

In this context, we need a new approach: one that sees diaspora NHS staff not just as contributors, but as partners and leaders in shaping the future of care in the UK and beyond. 

Experts in Our Midst: Turning Recognition into Power 

This is the work of the Experts in Our Midst programme, an initiative from Global Health Partnerships that unlocks the leadership, lived experience, and global insight of diaspora NHS staff. Since its launch in 2022, the programme has reached thousands of healthcare workers, built strategic partnerships with NHS Trusts and Health Boards across the UK, and sparked vital conversations about what true global collaboration on health looks like in practice. 

To further celebrate and elevate this expertise, we launched the Diaspora Health Champions Awards in 2024, publicly honouring diaspora health workers across the UK who are driving forward global health collaboration and innovation. These awards spotlight these professionals whose impact is too often overlooked, despite being central to the systems success. 

Why Platforming Diaspora Leadership Matters 

In a world of shared health challenges, diaspora NHS professionals are uniquely positioned to lead. They understand how to deliver care in resource-constrained settings, navigate cultural nuance, and build trust across communities. 

That’s why storytelling is central to the Experts in Our Midst programme, to evidence the value of diaspora leadership. 

Our 2023 Voices of the Experts in Our Midst report shares powerful reflections from frontline diaspora NHS staff. It weaves together personal testimonies, case studies, and survey data to demonstrate how international experience strengthens the NHS, not only in patient care, but in system design, cultural competence, and innovation. 

Crucially, it shows how diaspora health workers bring resourcefulness shaped by experience in under-resourced settings, and fresh perspectives that often lead to cost-effective, scalable solutions.  

And the data is clear: 74% of diaspora health workers we surveyed said their international experience improves the way they work in the UK.  

Their global expertise is a direct asset to the NHS’s productivity and efficiency goals. 

From Celebration to Action 

The NHS’s 77th birthday is not only a time to reflect – it’s a time to act. 

We must platform diaspora health workers, invest in them, and design systems that enable them to lead. Their perspectives should inform policy, shape strategy, and define the future of care. 

Partner with us to spotlight diaspora expertise in your NHS Trust or Board 

experts@thet.org