When the World Federation for Mental Health set the theme for World Mental Health Day (WMHD) 2026, it reminded me of a question I was asked some time ago: what, as a nurse, gets me up in the morning?
The day’s theme of ‘lived experiences heard: real voices, real change’ felt like both a recognition and an endorsement of the work I have been leading on over the last couple of years.
“My journey to where I am today has fundamentally been shaped by my life experiences”
As the clinical inequalities lead at St Andrew’s Healthcare in Birmingham, a 128-bed hospital providing specialist mental health services for men and women, what gets me up every morning is seeing the real change that lived experience brings to the people we care for.
The work of the team I lead identifies and reduces inequalities in clinical care and patient experience. I am immensely proud of that work and to genuinely see it making a real difference to people’s lives is why I am here.
As part of operating in a modern environment where the use of service data is key, I will always consistently champion the fundamental importance of collaboration and truly listening to the voices of patients.
I do that as being a woman who has progressed from staff nurse to senior staff nurse and from ward manager to my current leadership role of three years. The WMHD 2026 theme of ‘lived experience’ reaches far beyond my place of work.
My journey to where I am today has fundamentally been shaped by my life experiences. Being an immigrant has taught me what it feels like to be away from everything familiar, without the people, places, and support systems you have known all your life while still having to find your feet, adapt and thrive.
When a patient arrives with us at St Andrew’s Healthcare their experience is no different.
Therefore, as World Mental Health Day was marked across the world, it is not lost on me that the campaign hits our calendars at the same time as Black History Month.
I come from a culture where mental illness has not always been understood or openly talked about. That never sat comfortably with me, and my journey into nursing was led by a need to understand more but more importantly to know how I could help.
Therefore, leading the voice of patients in the St Andrew’s Healthcare Exerts by Experience project, and working to break down barriers in decision making spaces and drive co-production in everyday practice has shown the real difference I can make.
There are numerous national awareness days that impact us all, both professionally and personally. They do that in many ways but, for me, World Mental Health Day is important because the day is an opportunity to remind ourselves, whatever we do and wherever we do it, that people who experience mental health services should always have a genuine voice in shaping the services that they need.
Real voices bring real insight that we can not get from data or clinical knowledge alone. Listening must lead real change.
Therefore, it means moving beyond consultation and ensuring lived experience genuinely influences how we must design, deliver and improve care.
There is no doubt that on the recent World Mental Health Day, and every day since, we can and should recognise that we have done a great deal but there is so much more to do.
Cheryl Nyabezi is clinical inequalities lead at St Andrew’s Healthcare Birmingham and is the chair of the Royal College of Nursing branch in South Birmingham