Stamping out poor attitudes and raising the rainbow flag

This year's Pride London Festival marked our largest staff turnout since we started taking part around 10 years ago. Almost 60 staff represented London Ambulance Service (LAS), all in their own time.

It was a great day and those from our Service marching in the parade came from a variety of roles and clinical grades. This included staff from our control rooms and some who had just completed basic training in our education centres.

Pride is an opportunity for us to celebrate our staff as individuals and for them to be able to literally show ‘pride’ in who they are. Those taking part can proudly wear their uniform knowing that the Service, and wider NHS, are organisations that are supportive of them.

However, the origins of Pride have always been about protest and, in a modern LGBT staff network, there are things we have to remember: we have a generation of staff who have, thankfully, generally not experienced the levels of oppression and exclusion that LGBT people who have gone before us have. But recent unfortunate events in the news, and in London in particular, have reminded us all that there is very much a reason why it is essential that the lives of LGBT staff and patients need to be proudly visible and have their voices heard. So for us, it's about keeping that spirit of protest alive. This year, the theme for Pride in London was #PrideJubilee to honour 50 years since the Stonewall riots of 1969 which sparked the modern pride movement—so we also have a duty to educate all of our staff about that and what it means.