Our Experience: Conversations with the Windrush Health Group

The Windrush group was set up a few years ago in recognition of the significant unmet health and wellbeing concerns of community members.

Healthwatch Lancashire had initially met with the group as part of another engagement. From this, broader concerns were raised about the wider wellbeing of the community.

In particular, the group highlighted concerns around:

• The experience of growing up in an atmosphere of increased levels of physical violence (from the wider community)
• Being caught between two cultures
• Having to contend with racism – and how it has changed, evolved and become institutionalised over the decades
• Living with negative cultural stereotypes
• The resultant impact of these experiences on mental wellbeing
• The lack of tailored support to meet these health needs
• A lack of confidence that the NHS has the capacity or the will to address these shortfalls

This report highlights the experience of the members of the Windrush Health Group but is set against the backdrop of the increased urgency of the Black Lives Matter Movement, as well as the recently published Department of Health and Social Care Reforming the Mental Health Act white paper, which highlighted mental health inequalities including disproportionate detention of people from ethnic minority communities