British Sikh Nurses: A Nursing Faith Group Tackling Health Inequalities

The latest Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) data shows nursing professionals across the UK identify as follows: 452,641 Christians, 17,389 Muslims, 13,422 Hindus, 3,983 Budhists, 2,385 Sikhs, and 946 Jews. 248,000 registered professionals said they had no religion, which means over half of professionals on the NMC register identify with some level of faith. This has driven some nurses to call for spiritual care to be given greater weight in practice. The group British Sikh Nurses (BSN) has been doing work within local gurdwaras since 2016 to tackle health inequalities in the community, particularly around diabetes and hypertension. Children’s nurse Rohit Sagoo founded the grassroots organization after he noticed the disparities in health outcomes that were negatively affecting the Sikh community. Sagoo had also been approached by the govt. to undertake a piece of health promotion to get more South Asian people to sign up for organ and stem cell donation. He began to pitch up tables in Gurdwaras across London and Birmingham to talk to the congregation. ‘It was a nurse-led health education intervention that built trust within the Sikh community.’ Since it was founded, BSN has done over 5,000 screenings for people in the Sikh community. Sagoo noted that around 60% of those screened were ‘walking around with undiagnosed hypertension.’ The organization’s community outreach has encouraged and enabled people to go to their General Practitioner for further testing. BSN has now grown to over 100 members and 10 volunteers. ‘Everyone gives that time free of charge. It is about the tenets of the Sikh religion of giving back to your community.’