KEEPNET

Keech Hospice Care’s partnership with the University of Bedfordshire aims to improve the accessibility and provision of their end of life care services for ethnic communities in their region.

Their joint research initiative to find out what the barriers to accessibility were and how minority voices could be best listened to and heard uncovered the need for a new role – someone who was integrated within and respected by South Asian communities and who could bring the learnings back to Keech to help shape the hospice’s provision – a community connector.

So far, over 350 people from South Asian communities have engaged with events and workshops facilitated by the community connector, helping to convey the message that Keech is a hospice for everyone, where individuals’ spiritual and emotional, as well as health, needs are met.

What began as a hospice/university partnership resulted in not just a more connected community for Bedfordshire and surrounds, but potentially also for five other regions around the country, whose local hospices are seeking Keech’s counsel into how to run their own connected community initiative.