British Deaf Association calls for mandatory BSL for NHS frontline staff after string of ‘heart-breaking’ communication failures

Frontline NHS staff should have mandatory Level 1 British Sign Language (BSL) and Deaf Awareness training in order to prevent the “life-threatening communication failures” Deaf BSL signers experience every day, according to the British Deaf Association (BDA).

See the press release here:

The charity’s call comes after a string of incidents in recent years where Deaf individuals have not had access to a BSL interpreter in healthcare settings, with news of a Deaf woman learning of her husband’s passing via a video call making headlines over the past week.

Elizabeth Corbett, from Derby, was contacted by her children while at work after their father David had stopped talking.

Ms Corbett told BBC News: “At first the kids thought he was joking – because he was a big joker – but then they started to panic when they couldn’t wake him up.

“When I got [home] the kids were stood on the lawn crying and the emergency services wouldn’t let me in the house. Not one of them could communicate with me and I couldn’t explain who I was.

“I wanted to know what was happening and the police were asking me questions, but they were all wearing face masks so I couldn’t tell what they were saying.

“Eventually I contacted work and the receptionist spoke to the paramedics who told her that David had died. So I found out over FaceTime that he had gone.”

Craig Whyles of the East Midlands Ambulance Service offered their “sincere condolences” to Mr Corbett’s family and said he was “deeply sorry for the poor experience” Ms Corbett had had with their service.

Meanwhile in 2021, reports surfaced of a daughter forced to interpret her father’s terminal cancer diagnosis, and of a Deaf man who was allegedly given a ‘do not resuscitate’ order without his consent – both as a result of communication difficulties.

A year later, The Limping Chicken reported on a 60-year-old Deaf woman who was allegedly kept in a hospital for five days without access to a BSL interpreter.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, BDA CEO Rebecca Mansell said “every Deaf person in Britain” has “countless heart-breaking stories” about healthcare.

“Stories of young children being forced by doctors to inform their Deaf parent that they have terminal cancer, Deaf people undergoing operations without understanding what they’re for or able to give their consent, Deaf people having urgent health treatment cancelled because they couldn’t answer phone calls from the hospital that hadn’t bothered to read their notes.

“The Equality Act 2010 and the Accessible Information Standard 2016 guarantee BSL
users the right to communicate via a qualified, registered BSL interpreter. But this still isn’t happening,” she said.

The BDA also referenced a report by the Deaf health charity SignHealth last year, in which more than two-thirds of Deaf people said they have not been given an accessible way of contacting their GP, and only 11% of disabled patients said they have fair and impartial access to the NHS.

Of the health and social care providers surveyed, one in three said they were unaware or unsure about the existence of the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), guidance introduced in 2016 which legally requires NHS providers and publicly funded adult social care to meet the “communication support needs” of disabled patients.

Ms Mansell continued: “Our language – British Sign Language – was finally recognised in law last year, with the BSL Act 2022. As we approach the first National BSL Day on 28 April, the Deaf community now rightly expects that we are now, at long last, going to be treated as equals when it comes to accessing public services.

“It is time for the introduction of mandatory BSL and Deaf Awareness training for all frontline NHS staff who interact with Deaf people. This must happen in addition to urgent improvements to the provision of qualified BSL interpreters for Deaf people in routine and emergency healthcare settings.

“When an in-person interpreter is not immediately available, healthcare staff should contact video relay interpreters – “interpreters on wheels” – to ensure that they can communicate with the Deaf patient without delay.

Every second counts. That communication can mean the difference between the patient’s life or death.”

The CEO’s comments also come after the BDA unveiled its draft “strategic vision” for the next 10 years at its inaugural BSL Conference last month – in which is a commitment to proposing a “national BSL-led review” collecting Deaf people’s experiences of the AIS.

In an interview with The Limping Chicken at the conference in London, Ms Mansell said: “The aim is to really bring together 50 years worth of research. So the Deaf community, Deaf academics, they’ve been campaigning and trying to influence the Government for years, but it’s come out in dribs and drabs. It’s standalone research – that just won’t do.

“We need to bring all this research together into one document, that’s what the strategy talks about.

“So from birth, every stage of our lives, we want to include evidence to back up all of this – so 50 years’ worth of research in one paper. I think people will read it and think, ‘gosh, the barriers all the way from birth to end-of-life’, and that is the reality.

“That needs to stop. It needs to be changed.”

A BSL version of the BDA’s latest comments can be viewed online via Vimeo.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.