General Practitioners: Hearing Impaired

(asked on 25th May 2021) - View Source

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 standardise accessibility to GP services for deaf patients and ensure GP surgeries meet their responsibilities under the Accessible Information Standard.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 3rd June 2021

All National Health Service providers are required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in the Equality Act 2010 and the Accessible Information Standard to ensure that deaf people who wish to communicate using British Sign Language (BSL) when accessing NHS services can do so.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have also commissioned a rapid review into access to BSL interpretation in NHS services which is nearing completion. The review will set out clear steps to support NHS providers to meet their responsibilities to deliver access to BSL interpretation. Under the General Medical Service and Personal Medical Service regulations, practices are required to ensure that their premises are suitable for the delivery of essential services and that these services are sufficient to meet the reasonable needs of their patients, including those with disabilities.

Reticulating Splines