Kirsteen Allison: The barriers to mental health support if you’re deaf (BSL)

When I was experiencing anxiety, I quickly realised how inaccessible mental health services can be for deaf people—especially those who don’t use BSL.

My doctor, who knew I was deaf, suggested I listen to podcasts. Except podcasts don’t always come with transcripts. My then employer pointed me towards our Employee Assistance Programme, but you could only contact them via telephone. When I tried using the text relay service, they hung up, assuming I was a sales caller.

Even Access to Work was no help. Trying to contact them via text relay was impossible—the automated messages were too fast for the operator, and I kept getting hung up on. Even complaining about the inaccessibility took months and involved my MP, my union, disability groups, and the media.

Eventually, I was advised to try the Access to Work mental health service. But every provider I contacted required a phone call to register. When I explained I was deaf and had other disabilities, they admitted they lacked the funding and expertise to support me.

Going back to Access to Work, I was told I could get funding for specialist counselling—but only if I gave up some of the funding for my other adjustments, like communication support. There was no option to increase funding, only to reallocate it. Having multiple disabilities, I found myself in an impossible position—being forced to decide which of my disabilities mattered more.

Yes, there are specialist mental health services for deaf people, but they are designed for BSL users, which I am not. I found some webchat and text-based counselling, but those were private, meaning I had to pay out of pocket. Even something as simple as getting medication required a hearing family member to make the call for me.

People often assume mental health support is easy to access and that solutions should be straightforward—talk to someone, get counselling, take medication. But for some of us, it’s not that simple. When the very systems designed to provide help create additional barriers, getting support can feel impossible.

Many deaf and disabled people face significant challenges in accessing mental health care, leading to poorer mental health outcomes. Inaccessible services create additional stress, making it harder to get the right support at the right time. And yet, the expectation is often that we should simply “make do.”

Mental health services must be designed with accessibility in mind—ensuring deaf and disabled people aren’t left behind. That means offering multiple ways to communicate, funding specialist services for all deaf people (not just BSL users), and recognising that accessibility isn’t an optional extra—it’s a necessity.