Coronavirus: BBC News channel to provide BSL for daily government briefings

According to the UK Council on Deafness, the BBC have now committed to providing BSL interpretation on the government’s daily briefings on the coronavirus crisis. (with thanks to Deaf journalist Paul Harrison for sharing this on Twitter)

Please note that these seem likely to be available on the BBC News or BBC News HD channels – so far they haven’t been seen on BBC1 or BBC2.

They are also available on BBC iPlayer, but they take a bit of finding. If you go to the signed section and choose the ‘most recent’ option (click here to do this) then scroll down, the latest signed news bulletin should appear as one of the options. Even then, you may need to fast forward the programme to reach the signed section.

Further information from the UK Council on Deafness website:

The BBC have announced that they will be providing Sign Language Interpretation on all weekday Coronavirus government briefings and that the BBC is doing everything it can to ensure these important briefings are accessible.

Please note:  Due to limited resources there will be some changes to live signing on the BBC News from Monday 23^rd March as follows:

On weekday mornings there will be signing from:-

07:45 – 08:15

13:00 – 13:30

News will be signed each weekday as normal as will the 07:00 – 07:30 slots on weekends.

The situation is quickly developing and the BBC will keep you informed of any further changes to their  sign language coverage.