Top picks: 11 resources to support people with hearing loss or deafness

Summary

The UK Council on Deafness created Deaf Awareness Week (6-12 May) to increase the visibility of challenges the deaf community face and educate others on how they can support them.

Patient Safety Learning has pulled together 11 useful resources shared on the hub to help healthcare professionals, friends and family communicate and support people with hearing loss or deafness.

Content

1 Royal College of General Practitioners: Deafness and hearing loss toolkit

This educational kit, developed by Royal College of GPs (RCGP) in collaboration with RNID and NHS England, aims to support GPs to consult effectively with deaf patients by offering tips on how to communicate during face to face and remote appointments. It offers guidelines on how to recognise early symptoms of hearing loss and how to refer patients for a hearing assessment. 

2 Communicating with patients with hearing loss or deafness—Can you hear me?

The authors of this JAMA article describe the experience of a family member who was in critical care, and who is deaf. They outline a lack of awareness amongst healthcare professionals about their relative's deafness and highlight the lack of understanding in how to communicate with her. They go on to outline a number of approaches to communicating with patients who are deaf or hard of hearing.

3 Inequalities and unreasonable adjustments: are D/deaf women being given a detrimental care pathway in the name of risk assessment?

In this article, published in The Practising Midwife, Rachel Crowe argues that in the UK, pregnant women who are hearing impaired or D/deaf (sign language users) and deaf (who are hard of hearing but who have English as their first language and may lipread and/or use hearing aids) are often labelled as high risk and offered a care pathway that is unsuitable and detrimental to their care. This article provides an overview to the needs of D/deaf birthing people with a number of recommendations and tools for use in clinical practice.

4 Blog - 12 tips for communicating with deaf patients

Communication barriers are the number one reason deaf people have poorer health compared to hearing people. This blog by the organisation SignHealth gives 12 tips for healthcare workers and non-clinical staff on how to communicate with deaf people. It also describes the difficulties deaf people face when booking appointments and describes why remote consultations are problematic for deaf people.

5 CardMedic: Empowering staff and patients to communicate across any barrier

In this interview, anaesthetist Rachael Grimaldi tells us about CardMedic, the organisation she founded to empower staff and patients to communicate across any barrier. Rachael explains how their tools can be used to support vulnerable groups and reduce inequalities. 

6 Cervical screening when deaf

In this blog, published by Jo's cervical cancer trust, two deaf women share their experiences of a cervical screening (and colposcopy) appointment, as well as their top tips for others. 

7 Accessible and inclusive communication within primary care: What matters to people with diverse communication needs

The primary care team have an important role in making people feel welcomed, listened to and taken seriously. Yet we often hear examples about people who have not had their communication needs met within primary care. This includes people with sensory impairments. This report from National Voices sets out the key issues faced by people with specific communication needs within primary care and what they feel would make the biggest difference, as well as key actions primary care leaders and teams can take to support inclusive communication. 

8 Independent Review of Audiology Services in Scotland

In January 2022 the Scottish Government asked for an independent review of the audiology services in Scotland in the context of failings in the standards of care provided in the NHS Lothian Paediatrics Services and made a series of recommendations.

9 The Safety Gap: Safety and accessibility of medicines and medical devices for people with sensory impairment

This report for the Patient Safety Commissioner for England, commissioned from Professor Margaret Watson, highlights serious gaps and deficiencies in the way that people with visual and/or hearing impairment or loss (referred to as sensory impairment) are able to access and use medicines and medical devices safely. The report presents the results of a short-term study to explore the challenges experienced by patients with sensory impairment in relation to their safe and effective access to and use of medicines and medical devices and offers a number of recommendations.

10 Kingdon review: terms of reference

Dr Camilla Kingdon has been appointed by the Secretary of State to chair an independent review of children's hearing services. The review will consider NHS England’s response to the service failures in paediatric audiology; how the relevant governance arrangements between NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care could be improved and identify lessons learned; and how NHS England’s handling of any future service failures in similar services could be improved and identify lessons learned.

11 Still ignored: The fight for accessible healthcare

In this report, RNID and SignHealth demonstrate that the NHS does not have the systems in place to fulfil the right to accessible healthcare for people who are deaf or have hearing loss. This new research shows that the NHS often fails to meet the fundamental needs of people who are deaf or have hearing loss, clearly violating the rights set out in the Equality Act over 15 years ago.

Do you have a resource you'd like to share? We’d love to hear about it - leave a comment below or join the hub to share your own post.