Peckham woman who beat odds to qualify as junior doctor celebrated for helping others from underprivileged backgrounds

A single mum’s daughter who created opportunities for others like her has been celebrated with an award which recognises the achievements of young people from underprivileged backgrounds.

Leanne Armitage, who has recently qualified as a junior doctor, grew up on a council estate in a single parent family in Peckham with her mother and four siblings, and was initially turned down for medical school.

But she kept going and was finally admitted to study to be a doctor.

Frustrated by the lack of diversity at the school, Leanne, pictured above, set up a charity to promote access to the profession for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

She has now been celebrated at the Rare Rising Star Awards – a celebration of people who have excelled and made positive contributions to public life via entrepreneurship, campaigning, the arts and academia, and social enterprise.

Leanne was also awarded the Queen’s Young Leaders Award at Buckingham Palace in 2018.

She had been intrigued by the frequent emergency service sirens in her neighbourhood from a young age, and witnessed the aftermath of a stabbing in an estate nearby at the age of just 15.

It made her resolve to make a difference, setting herself the aspiration of becoming a trauma surgeon.

There were no medics in her family or social network, so Leanne had to use her own initiative to research the steps to achieve this goal.

Throughout her GCSEs Leanne was in the second set for most of her classes.

But she was still able to successfully attain 10 A*s in her GCSEs, got three As in her A-levels and secured three medical offers during her gap year and decided to study at St George’s University of London, in Tooting.

But she became frustrated at what she saw as a lack of diversity in the student body across UK medical schools, during her second year studying at St George’s.

So she founded Leanne’s Amazing Medics, an outreach programme designed to inspire, equip and increase the self-confidence of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

The programme started in 2017 with Leanne going back to her old sixth form and working with eight students once a month for six months, delivering practical and theoretical lessons.

By the end of the year, she had secured funding from her university and was able to expand the programme to three more school.

Leanne was now working with 30 students in Year 9 – as she realised she had to start from a much younger age. She ran the programme again the following year.

She decided to co-found a charity, The Armitage Foundation, with Daniel Huf, to offer a medical outreach programme to students from under-represented backgrounds.

This is the work which won her the UK 2018 Queen’s Young Leaders Award.

In January 2019, Leanne received an £11,000 grant from Comic Relief, alongside some matched funding by a private donor, which allowed The Armitage Foundation to hire its first staff member.

Since April 2019, the manager has worked on transforming its programmes to a now three-tier programme designed to support students from Year 9 up until their application to medical school – Armitage Juniors, Armitage Seniors and Armitage Scholars.

The charity has now rolled out all three programmes in the same three schools they have been working with in the South London area.
Leanne has also delivered keynote speeches at high profile events –

• Comic Relief ’s Red Nose Day Reception at the Houses of Parliament,
• The Baton Awards Ceremony at the Houses of Parliament
• Ernst & Young’s Black-Tie Ball event
• The 2018 Aleto Foundation leadership course
• London’s first black Lord Lieutenant Sir Kenneth Olisa’s celebration of his knighthood.

Leanne said: “I feel a deep sense of gratitude for this recognition. When I started this, it wasn’t the plan to get awards.

“I set these courses up because I am passionate about diversity in UK medicine. It really encourages me and motivates me that, despite the setbacks, you need to keep going.”