NHS Trust Partners with Stoke-on-Trent Sikh Community in Cancer Screening Health Drive

Stoke-on-Trent's South Asian community took centre stage as the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust partnered with local Sikh leaders to run a dedicated health and wellbeing event at the city's Guru Nanak Gurdwara and Sikh Cultural Centre. The initiative, held on 14 November 2025, brought healthcare professionals directly into a trusted community space to address cancer screening awareness, provide flu vaccinations, and reduce the longstanding health inequalities that disproportionately affect the city's South Asian population.

🤝 UHNM Brings NHS Cancer Screening into Stoke's Sikh Community Space

The University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust announced a pioneering health and wellbeing event at the Guru Nanak Gurdwara and Sikh Cultural Centre in Stoke-on-Trent, scheduled for Friday 14 November 2025. Developed in direct partnership with local Sikh leaders, the event was conceived to bring NHS services into a trusted community space, recognising that healthcare access barriers are often cultural and logistical as much as they are medical. The initiative was delivered by a coalition of partners including UHNM Cancer Screening Services, the UHNM Population Health team, the community support organisation VAST, and Stoke-on-Trent's Sikh community. Attendees were invited to learn about NHS cancer screening programmes covering bowel, breast, lung, and cervical cancers, areas where uptake has historically been lower in South Asian communities across the UK. Visitors could speak directly with healthcare professionals about symptoms, early detection, and available support services, removing the formality and distance of clinical appointments. Beyond cancer screening, the event offered wellbeing activities and practical guidance on diet, exercise, and mental health, as well as flu vaccinations for eligible attendees, making it a genuinely comprehensive community health day. UHNM Public Health Practitioner Alex Nisbeck said events of this kind play a vital role in community health: they create early detection opportunities, reduce inequalities by reaching underserved groups, build trust between healthcare providers and communities, and promote preventative health through education in spaces where residents feel safe, comfortable, and genuinely heard. The gurdwara setting was central to the event's purpose, reflecting a belief that healthcare must go to where people are. This kind of targeted community event acknowledges that effective public health requires meeting people where they are, building genuine relationships between NHS institutions and the diverse communities they are designed to serve across the entire city. [1]

🪔 BBC: Stoke NHS Gurdwara Visit Tackles South Asian Health Barriers Head-On

BBC Radio Stoke provided post-event coverage of the health initiative, confirming that the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust had successfully completed its outreach event at the Guru Nanak Gurdwara and Sikh Cultural Centre in Stoke-on-Trent. The BBC report gave voice to Sadaff Butt, a UHNM representative who attended and participated in the event, who described it as a genuinely positive way of addressing health inequalities with Stoke-on-Trent's South Asian community. Butt explained that the concept had emerged after trust executives visited the gurdwara and saw firsthand that many community members face real barriers when accessing and engaging with NHS health services. Rather than relying solely on clinical settings, the event placed healthcare professionals in a familiar, trusted environment that South Asian residents already associate with community life, collective support, and belonging. Butt also outlined hopes to extend the model to local mosques, temples, and other community settings throughout Stoke-on-Trent, with the aim of reaching a broader cross-section of the city's South Asian population, not only those connected to the Sikh community. The BBC report framed the initiative as part of a wider national conversation about tackling health inequalities that disproportionately affect minority ethnic communities, particularly around cancer screening, where awareness and uptake remain well below national averages in many South Asian households. The pilot event was described as a working proof of concept that culturally sensitive, community-embedded health outreach can genuinely bridge the gap between the NHS and the populations it most urgently needs to reach and serve. Stoke-on-Trent has a sizeable and well-established South Asian community, and initiatives that bridge the gap between NHS services and that community represent a meaningful step toward more equitable healthcare outcomes for all residents. [2]

Sources: [1] University Hospitals of North Midlands · [2] BBC