Exclusive: BSL Health Access to close next week as NHS funding runs out

BSL Health Access, which allows Deaf sign language signers to use a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter to contact medical staff, is to shut down at the end of March when it runs out of funding.

The service, run by the deaf health charity SignHealth and interpreting agency InterpreterNow, was set up in March 2020 with £800,000 of the charity’s reserves, before NHS England agreed to finance it from December to March 2021.

However, with SignHealth yet to receive a commitment from NHS England that they will fund the service from 1 April, BSL Health Access – which cost between £25k-£30k a week to operate – is set to be turned off at midnight on 31 March.

No money, BSL Health Access is closing.

As it stands now, there is no funding confirmed for @BSLHealthAccess from the 1st April onward, so the service must close at the end of the month.

More information on our website at https://t.co/GWKYL7T3GB pic.twitter.com/tGRY1vX69y

— SignHealth (@SignHealth) March 22, 2021

Speaking to The Limping Chicken, SignHealth’s chief executive James Watson-O’Neill said: “The decision that the Board [of Trustees] made recently to not fund it any further was a very tough one. It was a very difficult conversation – the majority of my board are Deaf people.

“They’ve used the service, they understand the need for it, but they also understand that we have to draw a line. We have to call the bluff of NHS England and say, ‘we’re not going to pay for this anymore, you’ve got to pay.

“You should have paid us back for the £800,000 that we’ve spent, because we should be spending that on something that innovates, that the Deaf community doesn’t currently have a right to. This is something that we shouldn’t have to spend money on’.

“I think that’s what I would want the community to understand,” he said.

In addition to the grant provided to SignHealth, NHS England also confirmed that it would conduct a review into the organisation’s BSL provision.

The review is yet to be published, with Watson-O’Neill telling The Limping Chicken that the last update he had received was that it was with the NHS’ legal team.

On its potential findings, the chief executive said he hopes that there’s increased quality, with a recommendation about a video relay service.

“I think this experience with BSL Health Access shows us that it is used.

“The feeling I get from that mainstream health sector in primary care is that it’s unlikely they will go back to normal [post-pandemic]. I think that they will continue to be much more digital-first and much more phone-first than they were before,” he said.

Watson-O’Neill added that he didn’t think things would go back to normal from a patient perspective, with some who have remote access to healthcare wanting to continue using services in that way after the COVID-19 crisis.

He continued: “It can be very convenient – particularly for disabled people. It can remove the need for travel and all kinds of things.

“It’s just about making sure that there’s still choice available. [A Deaf person] should be able to call their pharmacy and they should be able to respond to the letter they get from the hospital saying that ‘your appointment’s been cancelled, please ring here’.

“They should be able to do that, and they can do that through video relay. An in-person interpreter is not really going to fill that gap, ever.”

With regards to funding, Watson-O’Neill went on to say that he approached NHS England in December, January, February and then this month about financial support for BSL Health Access.

“[I said] ‘we’re really worried the funding is going to run out. The service is still required, the situation in which you granted us this money is essentially the same.

“The country is still locked down. There’s still no regular access to healthcare services.

“Many services, particularly GPs, are still phone-only or phone first. So, the circumstances in which you provided us with the grant are the same – we need another grant,” he said.

Concerns over the future of BSL Health Access were also raised earlier this month, when the service celebrated its one-year anniversary.

Data released to coincide with the milestone revealed that 61% of conversations through the service involved GPs, while 18% were held in hospitals.

Further statistics shown to The Limping Chicken also showed that BSL Health Access had a total of 6,141 calls in February, compared to just short of 2,000 calls in May last year.

While the service did see a decrease in December, Watson-O’Neill said this was due to Christmas and “the perception that you can’t call your GP” over the festive period.

Andrew Dewey, CEO at InterpreterNow, added: “Over 25,000 conversations were interpreted over the last year through BSL Health Access, and Deaf people have told us the service was ‘life-saving’.”

It comes as one Deaf user said accessing BSL Health Access on their iPad “saved my life”, while others described the service as “amazing” and “effective”.

Cheryl Culver, Community Manager for BSL Community in Maidstone, said: “I need BSL Health Access. I do not want it to end.

“I use the service a lot, for myself, family, friends and clients. Especially for the past 5 days following my husband’s operation.”

When asked what he would say to those concerned about accessing support in the future, Watson-O’Neill said: “The first thing I’d say is I’m really sorry you’re in this position. I think it’s dreadful that Deaf people are having a service withdrawn that is clearly so vital and clearly fills, to some extent, the communication gap. So that’s the first thing I’d say.

“NHS England have been fairly clear with us that their position is that this is the obligation of individual NHS providers, so we have no choice but to signpost people back to the specific organisation that they are accessing at that moment – whether it’s a hospital trust a GP surgery, whatever it might be.

“I accept that that is not a good enough response, but I would want the Deaf community to understand that that’s not us saying that, that’s NHS England, really,” he said.

A Change.org petition has since been set up calling on NHS England to continue funding the service.

NHS England did not respond to several requests for comment from The Limping Chicken.

Photo: BSL Health Access.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is a mildly deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He wears bilateral hearing aids and can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.