Supporting understanding and access for deaf patients and carers.


What did we do: We held a Big Conversation with members of the Deaf community in Doncaster. This was fully accessible with the presentation being delivered in British Sign Language (BSL) and BSL interpreters being available throughout the event. We asked the Deaf community to give us examples of good access to services and discuss ways that we could improve our Trust (RDaSH) services.

Following this conversation, we have been working with various staff across the Trust to implement the improvements they asked to be made. The Deaf community described many scenarios where access to services has been problematic, and volunteer to support staff to think of adjustments which may help the patient and health care workers.

Why is this important: Doncaster has a larger than average deaf community. RDaSH has a strong link with service users, carers and the public through our Public and Patient Engagement strategy. However, access difficulties for the Deaf community had been identified. The local Deaf community have spoken to us about their needs and agreed to help us to meet them.

National reports tell us that Deaf people have poorer health than their hearing counterparts due to barriers in accessing physical and mental health services. This can result in people delaying attending appointments which causes a risk of potentially avoidable harm. Diversity and Equality research and guidance (i.e. “Towards Equity and Access” 2005) recommends that all professionals should have Deaf awareness training as part of their professional training but this does not always happen, and is not always driven by the voice of the local community.

Deaf people in the local community expressed that they felt that some staff were not fully Deaf aware and that their needs are not adequately met due to this lack of awareness.

We needed to ensure that all our staff understand the barriers that Deaf people face and help to overcome them, and ensure that they receive support and intervention at the earliest stage in order to reduce risk.

What difference we have made: We have listened to staff and patients about what the key considerations which are required to increase access to services.

Our Nurse Specialist for Deaf Services – Rebecca Walls, and Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner Peter have then worked with Deaf

service users who provided feedback to produce a short film to support staff to understand what adjustments they can make, at no cost, which would significantly benefit patient experience.

The video has been uploaded to YouTube and many staff have accessed it and used it in training. We consider that the messages in the video are supportive to any services who work with deaf people, not just limited to RDASH and therefore in sharing this through FAB we hope it will be beneficial for other. 


If you want to know more please contact:- Jude Graham – [email protected] or on twitter @DrJude_G #rdashisfab

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