KHUSH™
Make your workplace-health investment work for South Asian staff.
Relevant to staff. Practical for managers. Measurable for the organisation.
Every race equality framework in Britain measures who gets hired and who gets promoted. None of them measures who stays well.
KHUSH is the health action. Six talks, line manager training, an audit of your policies and support routes, and an employer mark, with a South Asian doctor and someone who has lived it in every room. Built for relevant information, confident managers, practical policy action and reasonable adjustments that work.
Delivered and awarded by HHEI, an asset-locked Community Interest Company. Education only: no clinical service, and no commercial interest in any provider.
Why now
Two things are pushing employers to act.
The first is the law. The second is cost: health-related absence, and whether the support you already fund reaches South Asian staff. Both come back to the same policies: the ones that decide how staff are treated when their health changes.
Poor workplace health costs UK employers an estimated £85 billion each year through sick pay, lost output, presenteeism, conflict and recruitment. You already invest in wellbeing, an Employee Assistance Programme, occupational health, benefits and people policies. The commercial question is whether that investment works effectively across your whole workforce.
Ethnic-minority employees represent approximately 14 per cent of the UK workforce, yet a 2024 UK scoping review found only three eligible peer-reviewed studies examining their perceptions of workplace-health interventions. It concluded that workplace-health interventions remain most often designed for the ethnic majority, and called for culturally appropriate approaches that are tested for impact.
The law
- Employers of 250 or more are expected to publish an Equality Action Plan covering menopause from spring 2027, subject to regulations.
- Ethnicity pay gap reporting is planned to ask for an action plan, not only the numbers, though the law has no date yet.
- Government guidance tells employers to use their own workforce demographics to choose relevant actions.
- Only about a quarter of working women aged 40 to 60 say their employer has a menopause policy or support in place (CIPD, 2023).
The cost
- NICE advises type 2 diabetes risk checks from age 25 for South Asian adults, against 40 for others.
- That can mean more appointments, and for some staff short or recurrent absences.
- Many absence policies start a review meeting after a set number of absences, such as three in six months.
- ACAS advises that a trigger should never start disciplinary action on its own, and should flex.
How it works
Teach, equip, embed.
Talks first, then manager training, then the audit and the staff survey.
01
Teach
The six talks
What is different about South Asian health, and what to do about it.
02
Equip
Manager training
The programme is built around it. Managers make the decisions on adjustments, absence and time off.
03
Embed
The KHUSH-6 audit and the staff survey
So the change shows in policy and in the numbers, not only in the session.
What you can book
Five themes, six talks, any month.
Every talk is ninety minutes and includes a 30-day recording for internal replay. A South Asian doctor plus someone who has lived it. Confidence measured before and after, with a one-page report for the board. Nothing is tied to an awareness week. Delivered online by default, or on site by agreement.
Heart and metabolic health
South Asian Cardio-Metabolic Health
Diabetes, blood pressure and heart risk at South Asian thresholds, and why BMI can underestimate risk. Where to get checked, and what an NHS Health Check covers.
Mind
Mental Health at Work: A South Asian Lens
Faith, family and stigma, and what stops people using the support their employer already has.
Women's hormonal health
South Asian Women's Health: Menopause, Midlife and Work
Symptoms, timing, bone and heart health in midlife, and the adjustments that work. Can be included as a menopause action in an Equality Action Plan.
South Asian Women's Hormonal Health: Periods, PCOS, Endometriosis and Fertility
Conditions that affect working-age women and are often hidden at work. Delayed diagnosis, pain, privacy, appointments and the adjustments that help.
Men's health
South Asian Men's Health
Energy, metabolic risk, burnout, and the checks men put off.
Cancer and early detection
Cancer Awareness, Screening and Early Detection
Breast, cervical and bowel screening, the barriers that lower uptake, and routes into timely assessment.
Line managers
Managing South Asian health at work
Half day or full day · price on request
Led by a UK occupational medicine doctor, with someone who has lived it. The health picture in thirty minutes, the conversation, the adjustments that work, what your policy covers, and where it is silent on earlier onset, and three scenarios worked live.
Managers leave with a script and a checklist. The full day adds policy application and action planning. A half-day follow-up, three to six months on, is where managers report what they changed.
What it helps you evidence
- Reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act, including the EHRC's 2024 guidance on menopause
- Line manager training that is recent, relevant and recorded
- A confidence score for managers, measured before and after
- A written audit of your provision for the board
Written work
The KHUSH-6 audit
Price on request
An occupational medicine doctor leads and an organisational reviewer checks; they rate your provision Red, Amber or Green across every KHUSH area, with a written report for the board.
Where a policy is missing that is noted, and because only about a quarter of working women aged 40 to 60 say their employer has menopause support in place, one often needs writing.
A menopause action plan for your whole workforce, with an ethnicity section built from your own data, can be added. It supports your Equality Action Plan; it does not meet a legal duty on your behalf.
The five policies it checks, and what we usually find
Sickness absence
Absence trigger points are often written around a single midlife picture. NICE advises diabetes risk checks for South Asian adults from 25, which can mean appointments and short absences that standard trigger systems do not always handle well.
Time off for appointments and screening
Whether a smear, a diabetic review or a health check comes out of annual leave decides whether it happens at all.
Menopause
Menopause policies are often built around a single midlife picture, the UK average age of 51, rather than the range staff may experience.
Fertility and pregnancy loss
Policies do not always address leave, privacy and appointments clearly, and the cultural context can shape what staff feel able to say.
Mental health and disclosure
Faith, family and reputation change what a person is willing to say, and to whom.
Your equality and diversity policy is the lens all five are checked against, rather than a slot of its own.
Three ways in
One talk, or the whole thing.
Everything above can be booked on its own. The packages are the same work, arranged so that nothing is missed, with the Member year and the sign-off assessment included. One price, whatever the size of your organisation. Larger organisations usually add manager training groups, since one group covers about fifteen managers.
Foundation
A twelve-month paid pilot, baseline and readiness programme. Two talks, a half-day manager workshop, a self-assessment baseline, the Foundation Findings Note and your first Member year.
Price on request
In the Programme and Pricing pack, on the call.
You become a KHUSH Member
Recommended
Partnership
All six talks, a full-day manager workshop, the KHUSH-6 audit with a board report, your staff surveyed, and assessment for the mark.
Price on request
In the Programme and Pricing pack, on the call.
You become a KHUSH Accredited Employer
Embedded
Partnership, plus a half-day manager follow-up three to six months on, your menopause action plan written, and the audit re-run to show what moved.
Price on request
In the Programme and Pricing pack, on the call.
You become a KHUSH Accredited Employer
| What is included | Foundation | Partnership | Embedded |
|---|---|---|---|
| Talks | 2 | All 6 | All 6 |
| Manager training | Half day | Full day | Full day, plus a half-day follow-up |
| KHUSH-6 assessment | Self-assessment baseline | Full audit with report | Full audit, re-run at the follow-up |
| Menopause action plan written | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Member year | Included | Included | Included |
| Assessment for the mark | Not included | Included | Included |
Packages cover one organisation and one manager group of about fifteen. Extra manager groups are charged separately. Extra sites, legal entities or policies are quoted separately.
Start with Foundation, move up later
Foundation upgrades to Partnership at any point in the first twelve months. You have already had two talks, the half-day workshop, the self-assessment and a Member year.
The upgrade adds four talks, the second half of the workshop day, a half-day audit review of your self-assessment and policies, and the sign-off assessment.
NHS, public sector and community
NHS and public sector organisations receive identical content at a lower NHS rate, with membership renewed at the NHS rate. Charities and community organisations join as KHUSH Community Partners at no fee.
Prices are shared on request in the Programme and Pricing pack. Delivered online by default; on-site talks by agreement, plus travel at cost.
Some talks can be delivered in Punjabi, Urdu or Gujarati; get in touch. Payment terms are in the Programme and Pricing pack.
NHS audits and clinical education days are quoted on request. The full Programme and Pricing pack, order form and terms are available on the call.
Who is in the room
Who delivers it.
Every talk has a South Asian doctor and someone who has lived it. Manager training is led by a UK occupational medicine doctor. KHUSH is delivered through HHEI's Expert Panel. These are the people in the room.
Dr Divpreet Sacha
GP with a Diploma in Occupational Medicine and a special interest in fertility and women's health at work. Founding Director
GP with a Diploma in Occupational Medicine and a special interest in fertility and women's health at work. Founding Director. Author of the iOH occupational health toolkit on supporting employees through fertility treatment. Lives with PCOS, been through IVF.
Dr Nadia Masood
Anaesthetist and occupational medicine (AFOM). Founding Director
Anaesthetist by training, qualified in occupational medicine (AFOM). Founding Director. Clinical expert in generative AI evaluation at Elsevier.
Dr Aaliya Goyal
GP and occupational medicine, public health
GP in the West Midlands (MRCGP, MFPH, DOccMed, FRSPH, DRCOG). Occupational health doctor across several Midlands NHS Trusts. Nationally elected RCGP Council member and Vice Chair of the RCGP Midland Faculty. NHS Health at Work Network Board. Membership of the Faculty of Public Health by Distinction, 2024, for health inequalities work.
Dr Kurren Sandhu
GP, lifestyle medicine
GP, lifestyle medicine. Founder of The Vital Room. Corporate wellbeing sessions for FTSE 100 companies.
Dr Fatima Tahir
GP, primary care research
GP. Primary care research, including work on the LOLIPOP study of cardiometabolic health in South Asian populations. Clinical pathway and adoption work.
Dr Farah Ahmed
GP, menopause specialist
GP and British Menopause Society-accredited menopause specialist. Runs an NHS menopause clinic in Hillingdon. Trustee of Cysters.
Dr Sana Javed
GP, menopause and health inequalities
GP, menopause and health inequalities. Medscape UK writer.
Dr Simran Ramewal
Psychiatry
Psychiatry doctor in higher specialty training, MRCPsych. Published in BJPsych Bulletin.
Dr Anand Patel
GP, men's health
GP with a clinical interest in men's health.
Anita Guru
Workplace and organisational, lived experience
Founder of The Mind Coach. A coach, speaker and learning and organisational development professional with a background in occupational psychology and nearly twenty years of experience. Anita speaks and writes about mental health, trauma, infertility, grief, endometriosis and the workplace impact of difficult health experiences. Trustee of the mental health charity My Black Dog.
Kreena Dhiman
Lived experience
Advocate and speaker. Speaks from lived experience of cancer, treatment and its long-term effects.
Seetal Savla
Lived experience
Advocate and speaker on fertility, IVF and pregnancy loss in South Asian communities.
Vikram Dosanjh
Lived experience, community
Co-founder of the Himmat Collective in Walsall, working with South Asian men and women in Punjabi and English. A South Asian male voice on men's health and on mental health.
Dr Sunny Rai
GP, lived experience
GP with an interest in exercise medicine. Speaks from lived experience on men's health.
Working with HHEI
Hormonal Health Equity Initiative CIC, Companies House 17166971, asset-locked. Public liability insured. Every doctor on the panel is GMC-registered. ICO registered, ZC126403. Education only: no clinical service, no patient data.
Panel members hold NHS and private roles; HHEI recommends no provider and takes no referral income. Several panel members also appear as Clinical Champions and Community Voices on Appy + Yaar, the South Asian health education platform where employees can send the KHUSH brief to their HR team.
Join, then earn
Committed, Member, Accredited.
Joining is free. Membership is what you hold. The mark is what you earn, and it is the only part that has to be assessed.
01
Committed to KHUSH
Free
A public listing as a committed organisation. The one-page workforce checklist, a manager conversation guide, a five-question staff pulse survey that gives you your own number, and the four free guides.
02
KHUSH Member
Complete Foundation
The Member mark, an annual South Asian staff confidence survey with a board report, 12-month recordings, a free seat for your staff network, and wording you can lift straight into your WRES, ethnicity pay gap, ESG and Race at Work reporting.
03
KHUSH Accredited Employer
Complete Partnership or Embedded
One mark, held for three years and then resubmitted. The KHUSH Accredited Employer mark is awarded when the four programme requirements are completed, no KHUSH-6 area is Red at sign-off, no area has moved backwards since the first audit, and the evidence is approved by two assessors who took no part in that employer's audit or manager training. Buying Partnership or Embedded provides the route to assessment; it does not guarantee the award. The Member fee halves for as long as it is held.
Membership
Membership is how an organisation stays with KHUSH once it has joined. The first year comes inside Foundation. From the second year it renews each year, priced by the size of your organisation.
- The KHUSH Member mark
- A quarterly Member session with the panel, shared across all Members
- An annual South Asian staff confidence survey, with a board report
- 12-month recordings of your talks
- The Equality Action Plan evidence pack, when you take the menopause talk
- A free seat for your staff network
- Wording for your WRES, ethnicity pay gap, ESG and Race at Work reports
- A health-awareness calendar and campaign toolkit
- One executive briefing a year
- Member rates on everything else
Membership prices for employers and for NHS and public sector organisations are in the Programme and Pricing pack, shared on request.
Once the mark is earned the Member fee halves, for as long as it is held. Accreditation runs three years, then is resubmitted.
What Accredited requires
- 1.Manager workshop delivered
- 2.At least one talk delivered to the workforce
- 3.KHUSH-6 audit completed at the start, and the position assessed again at sign-off
- 4.Staff confidence survey run, and the number reported
An employer mark awarded by HHEI CIC, held for three years and then resubmitted. It is not clinical CPD accreditation. The Partnership and Embedded packages cover all four requirements, which is why they are the route to it. Embedded is a deeper build, not a higher grade.
Booked one at a time
Talks, manager training, the KHUSH-6 audit and the menopause action plan can each be booked on their own. Everything, including recording licences, the evidence pack, the 30-minute manager briefing and the assessment on its own, is priced in the Programme and Pricing pack, shared on request. The briefing is limited in scope. It is not substantive manager training and does not satisfy the accreditation manager-training requirement.
Charities and community organisations join as KHUSH Community Partners at no fee. An employer can sponsor a community session and receive a social value report.
The case for the board
You have committed to race equality. Here is the health action.
Race at Work signatories commit to publicising their progress. NHS organisations report against the Workforce Race Equality Standard every year. Every public body publishes equality objectives under the Public Sector Equality Duty and reports on them. Large employers are set to report ethnicity pay gaps once the law is passed. KHUSH gives each of them a health action to report, with a number behind it.
If you bid for NHS contracts, social value carries a minimum weighting of ten per cent, and the NHS names reducing health inequalities as a priority. KHUSH counts as social value, with evidence attached.
NHS, health inequalities and communities
NHS, commissioners and communities.
NHS as employer
Health for the largest minority group in your workforce. A named action for your WRES action plan, the EDI Improvement Plan and the equality objectives you publish under the Public Sector Equality Duty, with a staff confidence number you can set beside your Staff Survey results.
NHS and public sector prices, lower than the employer prices for identical content, are in the Programme and Pricing pack, shared on request.
Commissioners and ICBs
Core20PLUS5 evidence for South Asian populations, from clinicians who are South Asian: hypertension case-finding and management, and the locally chosen PLUS groups, which can include ethnic minority communities. Pathway audits, prevention education for integrated neighbourhood teams, evaluation built in, and a named clinical voice on retainer.
Scoped on request. See the NHS page.
Clinicians and communities
Thresholds that fit the patient in front of you. A clinical education day for primary care and Training Hubs, contributed into accredited frameworks held by partner bodies. Online courses from January 2027.
Community work is grant-led and never sold. Charities join as Community Partners. Community and VCSE partnerships.
Next step.
A thirty-minute call scopes your workforce, your existing OH and EAP arrangements, and the commitment you are reporting against. Or commission one talk and see the room.
Questions
KHUSH: frequently asked
KHUSH is a defined employer programme. It makes the wellbeing support an employer already funds work better for South Asian staff, and gives organisations relevant health education, confident managers, practical policy action and visible evidence of progress. Six talks across heart and metabolic health, mental health, menopause and midlife, periods and fertility, men's health, and cancer screening, alongside line manager training, the KHUSH-6 audit and an employer mark. Every talk is delivered by a South Asian doctor with someone who has lived the condition. Manager training is led by a UK occupational medicine doctor. It is delivered and awarded by HHEI, an asset-locked Community Interest Company.