GupShup and beyond: Connecting with Pakistani Muslim communities

Naureen Khan, Engagement and Quality Officer for St Luke’s Hospice in Sheffield, is passionate about her work. She’s been in the role since it was created eight years ago and says that since then, “it’s been no looking back.”

The position was introduced when St Luke’s staff realised they needed to engage more with their wider community. Sheffield is a very diverse city, but the hospice wasn’t seeing this reflected in the people using their services.

To address the disparity, the team needed to find out why people weren’t using services. Naureen explains:

“I think this is where engagement was really important. [Finding out] where the barriers are, how we can make it more accessible.” 

When Naureen first started her role, she wasn’t sure where to start. She carried out a mapping exercise to help her identify the largest ethnic minority in their area: the Pakistani community.

The biggest proportion of this community is Muslim. As such, a lot of Naureen’s work focuses specifically on engaging with this group. However, Naureen highlights that this community encompasses many different religions:

“The culture will be the same except for the religion will be different, and probably the language will be the same. So I have to be very sensitive when I work around people that it is not just about one group that I’m supporting – that everybody feels included.”

St Luke’s tries to make sure everyone feels welcome to use their services. The Pakistani community is just one of the groups that St Luke’s has made efforts to engage with. 

Before any talk of services or available resources, the first step was to get to know the community. Naureen likens it to forming a friendship:

“That’s really important because it’s like, even when you move to a new place, you find out your surroundings, you find out your neighbours. You get to know them and they get to know you. That’s how friendships are formed.”

Part of this involved understanding the level of knowledge the community already held about hospice care. The team also wanted to know what people knew about St Luke’s Hospice specifically.  

The hospice answered these questions with a short survey:  

“We fairly quickly found out that there is, it’s not really a language barrier, it’s more of an educational barrier to start off with.”

Once Naureen knew this, she and the hospice team could get to work. 

Naureen explains that there can be a lot of stigma around hospice and end of life care within the Muslim community. She says there is “sensitivity around using medication or getting support […] and staying in a hospice.” Some people in this community may see receiving hospice care as against their religion.

An important part of her role is mythbusting these misconceptions.

When tackling these myths Naureen likes to know her audience. She tells us it’s “really important to find out whether people are more cultural or people are more religious”. Knowing where people’s beliefs come from help her to articulate things in a way they understand.

For example, if she knows a person is more religious, she can draw on examples from the sources they believe in to show them that receiving support is okay.

A big part of Naureen’s myth busting efforts focus on charity shops. She explains that many people in the Pakistani community don’t like to shop in charity shops.

Through her work, Naureen has seen similar thoughts among other local communities, like the Chinese community.  

Learning that these perceptions were so widespread encouraged her to start running workshops on what charity shops actually are and where the money goes.

She says that educating people in this way has helped a lot:

“I see a great uptake in people using our charity shops as well browsing. And then being proud about it and letting me know that ‘I bought this in your charity shop’. So it’s nice to hear that and to see that it’s actually working.” 

The hospice team doesn’t wait around for people to come to them. They are proactive in delivering educational sessions to the community:

“We’ve been out in the mosques – delivered seminars there, sessions there, workshops on all different levels.”

But it’s not just about organising their own events. Naureen and her colleagues make time to celebrate other people’s achievements and attend community events:

“I think most of my time was out in the community talking to people. Taking some health professionals with me [and] talking about the services individually, not as a package, because it can be overwhelming.”

Hospice staff and volunteers are always keen to be invited to events. These could be small gatherings of 10 people, or much bigger events of 100 – “it doesn’t matter to us,” Naureen says. Whatever the event may be, the team extend a warm invite to learn about the hospice. 

As well as attending external events, St Luke’s has worked to provide a hub for the local community at the hospice.  

Naureen and her team have created a group which meets for regular coffee mornings. It’s called GupShup, meaning ‘chitter chatter’ in Urdu. Naureen felt that this was the perfect name for the group, as the term encompasses a broad range of things:

“[GupShup is] very profound. You can have a very serious chat and you can call it GupShup or you can have a really informal chat and you can call it GupShup.”

This establishes that people can feel comfortable to have serious conversations, but also to keep things light if they’d prefer. Through the group, people are finding a place to speak about their illnesses.

Naureen says GupShup is “all about empowering [people], supporting them, signposting them.” It has provided a ‘foot in the door’ for people from the Muslim community to start using the hospice’s services.

Hospice care is all about providing personalised support to people using the services.

The hospice makes sure staff are aware of things that may be important to people from the Muslim community. For example, knowing that Muslim funerals typically need to happen within 24 hours of death. Knowledge like this means the hospice team can anticipate the needs of patients and adapt their services accordingly.

This helps reassure people that the hospice has things in place for them. And having someone like Naureen on the team provides an extra level of reassurance due to her own role in the local Muslim community:

“I’m a big part of the mosque and I deliver shroudings for the Muslim communities [...] It gives them a sense of reassurance that, okay, you know what you’re doing.”

Sometimes, there are cases where the family of a patient does not practise religion as staunchly as the patient themselves. As such, the family may not place as much emphasis on the spiritual aspect of care. But Naureen always prioritises what the patient wants and makes an effort to hear directly from them.

She explains some of the things that the hospice has put in place to accommodate their Muslim patients. For example, the team liaises with patients’ chosen mosques and faith leaders to provide spiritual support. Prayer mats and Qur’ans are also provided for patients and families to use.  

Some patients may not have the strength to hold up the Qur’an. For these people, accessible versions are available:

“We had to adapt everything to make them feel that they were still doing their worship according to their need, or their capabilities. So we provide Qur’an cubes.”

These are small cubes with speakers that play the Qur’an in many different languages. This lets patients listen to passages, even when they can’t read them.

Naureen has lots of similar examples of how St Luke’s accommodates Muslim service users. It’s a rather impressive list, but she tells us there is always room for improvement. Even so, she takes the time to acknowledge the hospice’s successes:

“We’ve had quite a few families and we’ve had really good feedback. So we’re doing something right.”

Throughout the year, St Luke’s Hospice highlights different events on the Islamic Calendar. One of the biggest religious holidays celebrated at the hospice is Eid al-fitr. This day of celebration marks the end of Ramadan – a month-long period of fasting observed by many Muslims.

Typically during Ramadan, Muslims will break their fast each evening with an Iftar. These are often joyous occasions which are shared with family and friends. Mosques and other community spaces often host Iftars, but St Luke’s has made the decision not to.

Naureen explains that many people at the hospice can’t fast during Ramadan because they are nearing the end of their lives:

“If the patients can’t fast and if I organise an Iftar for them, I don’t think they’ll be really happy about that.”

The hospice still marks Ramadan in different ways. They talk about Ramadan in GupShup and create quiet spaces for those observing the holy month. The team also organises craft activities that everyone can take part in. All of this helps to make the period feel special, regardless of whether a patient is able to fast.

Naureen is particularly enthusiastic about the hospice’s Eid celebrations. She and her team pull out all the stops for Eid, as this is an event that everybody can take part in.

The hospice chooses a day to recreate Eid. A festive atmosphere is created for patients, as well as any family, friends or loved ones who wish to come along. Patients are asked how they would like to celebrate and the hospice works with local community members to fulfil their wishes.  

“Eid is really important, especially for our service users,” adds Naureen, “because it could be the last Eid that they’re celebrating. So it’s a lovely memory for the loved ones as well because we often archive our photos as well for a later date.”

As well as hosting an Eid event at the hospice, St Luke’s takes part in Eid in the Park – a big annual event in Sheffield. Naureen and her colleagues attend to talk with local people, give out goodies, and share information about the hospice’s services.

“I think that those are the things that hospices really need to tap into,” Naureen says, “What’s happening around the Muslim world in the UK, what are UK Muslims doing, how they’re celebrating.”

She’s clearly proud that St Luke’s are at the forefront of this important community event.

This work is something Naureen cares deeply about:

“It’s really important and I think the more you do this work, you feel better in yourself thinking ‘Yeah, I’ve done something. It’s helped someone, and that feels so good.’”

Talking about her goals for this work going forward, Naureen’s eyes sparkle:

“We actually are doing a lot and it’s never enough for me! Sometimes I get told, ‘hold your horses, you’re going too fast!’.

“But I think our aim is to make it accessible for everybody – not just the Muslim community. For everybody who’s in need. To be so much in the community that the moment somebody faces loneliness within palliative care, or they need that support, that they know that, ‘Okay, St Luke’s is the place that we can ring’.  

“I think that’s our goal. And I think there is no stopping. We’re just going to move forward.”