Survey results and planned actions: Understanding the needs and preferences of our Asian Community

• 9 March 2021

As a Charity we feel passionately about ensuring our services are equitable and accessible to all. We want all of our community to feel comfortable using our facilities; whether that’s a visit to the Bistro, the Education Centre or to see a loved one. The Hospice is here for everyone.

We noticed, that as a group, fewer people from our Asian community are accessing our services.  In order to understand why that is and learn if there are things we could do differently, we released a short, anonymous questionnaire in November 2020.  This has provided us with some valuable insights into some of the ways we could improve access to our services.

Having collating the responses to our survey we could see there were some common recurring themes. We have summarised these and formed an action plan and will continue to monitor our progress over the next year.

We commit to:

• Training colleagues in cultural issues we should be aware of to support patients. These include the importance of men and women being cared for by a colleague of the same sex where possible, awareness of spiritual beliefs and food requirements. We will ensure this is part of staff’s mandatory induction.
• Ensuring we are proactive in making patients and families aware of our provision rather than waiting for them to ask.
• Ensuring that our menus and food provisions cater for range of dietary requirements and state these clearly on our website. Ensure hospitality colleagues are aware of these and respond to enquiries positively and proactively.
• Introducing sessions to support families caring for loved ones at home, recognising that this is often preferred to inpatient provision. These should be informal and begin with a coffee morning type session to put out feelers about what would be beneficial. Our focus will be on co-production.
• Ensuring our website is clear in terms of what we offer throughout the Charity that addresses cultural needs. We should also look at the possibility of leaflets or content in different languages and have them instantly available as downloads from our website.
• Hosting events that bring the community into the Hospice in a way which does not relate to services such as the use of Arthurs Shed.

If you wish to contact us to discuss our plan or would like to engage with us further in this work, please contact us.

To discover more about our Widening Access Group (WAG), which meets bi-monthly and aims to embed equality, diversion and inclusion across the Hospice to ensure we provide inclusive and accessible services and create a diverse and inclusive workplace, visit our WAG website page.