The British Deaf Association has said that the census results, which we reported on yesterday, gives a “wholly wrong impression” of the number of sign language users and should not be used to justify cuts. This is the second charity today to suggest the figures are misleading, after SignHealth’s statement this morning.
The BDA praised the census for recognising British Sign Language for first time but said that the BSL question was confusing and “tens of thousands” of BSL users were not counted.
In a statement on the BDA website, the charity says:
The British Deaf Association (BDA) believes that the census gives a misleading picture of the actual number of Deaf users of British Sign Language (BSL).
It is asking local authorities and health commissioners not to cut services on the basis of inadequate data.
The census identifies 15,000 people in England and Wales who declare BSL as their first language and 7,000 saying they use another sign language.
However, the Department of Health’s GP Patients survey estimates there are 122,000 BSL users – eight times as many.
BDA chief executive David Buxton said: “While we welcome the attempt to count BSL users for the first time, the census gives a wholly wrong impression of numbers. By asking the question confusingly, the census undercounted those for whom BSL is a first language. It also did not, of course, count the many tens of thousands of deaf people who use BSL alongside English.
“We are asking local authorities and health commissioners not to rely on the census when they plan services for Deaf people. It would be a tragedy if these misleading figures were used to justify cuts, resulting in Deaf people being further marginalised.
“There is already a shortage of BSL interpreters across the country and Deaf people are routinely denied access to health, education and employment.”
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Scott
January 31, 2013
Where exactly in the GP Patient’s Survey dataset does the figure of 122,000 come from? I haven’t been able to find it anywhere on their website so far. Is it an official, published figure from the DoH (and therefore subject to the high standards laid down by the UK Statistics Authority for all official UK statistics) or was it independently worked out from their raw data without their approval or knowledge?
Anna
February 2, 2013
http://www.gp-patient.co.uk/results/
I can’t find the statistic of 122,000 yet either. However the overall PCT data have had 4040 people reply saying they are deaf and use sign language. Taken as a percentage of the 1million+ respondents the figure comes to over 250,000 sign language users!!
I suggest context and ways of asking questions is important here.
Deaf people may ‘mainly use English’ rather than ‘mainly use BSL’ i.e. hearing family, TV subtitles, facebook, colleagues at work etc… i.e. the ‘main language’ result in the census.
But given an important meeting with a doctor to access full information or ‘the Friday night language after a week at work around talky hearing people who are difficult to lipread’ the deaf person is now a ‘deaf person who uses sign language’ the results in the patients survey.
Andy
January 31, 2013
Hmmmm…. when you make comparisons, you have to take care to compare like with like. The BDA have noted that 15,000 have BSL as a >first languageusersdependent< on BSL. The hard fact is that the number of signers, however large is only a tiny proportion of all deaf people. There's not much point in having a Census at all if nobody is going to believe the figures.
Andy
January 31, 2013
Hmmmm…. when you make comparisons, you have to take care to compare like with like. The BDA have noted that 15,000 have BSL as a *first language* but then goes on to compare that with the number of BSL *users*. Well if it comes down to it I am a user of BSL, on the rare occasions that I come into contact with a signer.
That’s a different thing to having BSL as a first language and different again to someone who is *dependent* on BSL. ie. can’t manage without it.
The hard fact is that the number of signers, however large is only a tiny proportion of all deaf people. There’s not much point in having a Census at all if nobody is going to believe the figures.