Your Care, Your Way

News - 19 May 2022

Shropshire residents who are blind, deaf or have a learning disability are not being given all the support they should be by local health services because of their communication needs, new research shows.

Publicly funded health and social care providers are required to communicate with you and give you information in a way that you can read and understand to ensure equal access to healthcare.. For example, using British Sign Language, large print letters, text, email.  

The failure puts services in breach of their duty under the Accessible Information Standard, a legal requirement created by NHS England in 2016.

The standard requires that all publicly-funded health and social care providers identify, record, flag, share and meet the information and communication needs of those who use their services,

However, evidence from Healthwatch shows that the statutory duty is being significantly compromised across England and that its implementation in Shropshire has been patchy.

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