Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of service provision for (a) deaf and (b) blind people in Norfolk.

Under the Equality Act 2010, health and social care organisations are required to make changes in their approach or provision to ensure that services are accessible to disabled people, as well as to everybody else. These changes are called reasonable adjustments.

NHS England has issued guidance for National Health Service commissioners with respect to the Reasonable Adjustments Digital Flag, also known as the Flag. The Flag has been developed to enable health and care workers to record, share, and view details of reasonable adjustments required by an individual across the NHS, wherever the person is treated.

In addition, NHS organisations and publicly funded social care providers must comply with the Accessible Information Standard (AIS) to meet the communication needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss, including patients with sight or hearing loss. NHS England has completed its review of the AIS and aims to publish the revised AIS soon.