Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that ambulance services are able to communicate effectively with Deaf people who use British Sign Language (BSL).

In accordance with the Equality Act 2010 and the British Sign Language Act 2022, ambulance services have a range of options to support Deaf/deaf individuals who use British Sign Language (BSL) in accessing ambulance services.

To facilitate clear and effective communication in emergency situations, individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech impaired can utilise tools such as the 999BSL video relay platform, which is app and web-based, to contact 999 via a BSL interpreter as well as access via emergency SMS messaging. Video relay apps can also be used to support communication and face-to-face assessment by crews on scene at incidents, where, via on-board iPads, paramedics can connect patients with a remote BSL video interpreter.

These resources, which are free to use and operate 24 hours, seven days a week, ensure that real-time communication is possible for BSL users when emergency and urgent assistance is required.