Dame Anionwu Annual Lecture 2025

Hailed as one of the UK's greatest ever nurses, Dame Elizabeth Anionwu has had an incredible career and a monumental impact on the nursing profession. From her early days as a health visitor through to becoming the first ever sickle cell nurse specialist, she has received countless honours & awards for her work, has been made patron to many organisations, including the Sickle Cell Society, and was declared one of the 70 most influential nurses & midwives in the history of the NHS.

Although now retired, Dame Elizabeth 's recent work has focused on the impact of COVID-19 on Black & Asian Communities. She recently became a Pride of Britain awardee and one of the BBC's 100 Women of the Year 2020. Her memoir, Dreams from my Mother, was released in 2021 and was awarded the Order of Merit in 2022.

To celebrate her life achievements, LSBU's College of Health and Life Science's are proud to announce the 2025 LSBU Dame Elizabeth Anionwu Annual Lecture: Celebrating Inclusivity in Nursing & Midwifery.

This event is open to all and we look forward to welcoming you to LSBU. There will be plenty of opportunities for questions, networking & discussion with Dame Anionwu, our guest speakers and LSBU colleagues during and following the event.

The topic for the 2025 lecture is:

Beating Bias: Prioritising women's heart health

This years lecture will be delivered by Professor Julie Sanders RN, BSc (Hon), MSc, PhD, FESC

Julie is a cardiovascular nurse specialising in cardiac surgery care. She has experience of a range of methods including genetic, large datasets, systematic reviews, observational, risk prediction models, patient reported outcome measurements and clinic trials and is currently a co-investigator on several large cardiac surgery trials. Her other area of work has focused on nursing and allied professional research capacity building, where she led the development of predoctoral, doctoral and post-doctoral clinical academic careers in practice at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where she continues to work 1 day a week.

Julie also has a number of national and international roles including a Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery (SCTS) of Great Britain and Ireland Nursing and Allied Professional Ambassador, a co-founder of the Cardiac Surgery International Nursing and Allied Professional Research Network (CONNECT), the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Association of Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions (ACNAP) Science Committee Chair (2020-2024) and is the ACNAP President-Elect (2024-2026).

Julie Sanders | King's College London

Our lead sponsor for this event is Unison.

If you are interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at this event, please email anam.farooq@lsbu.ac.uk