Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many medical appointments were missed by (a) deaf and (b) hearing impaired people due to a lack of information support (i) at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, (ii) in the North West and (c) in England over the last three years.

The Department does not hold data on medical appointments missed in the format requested. Our Elective Reform Plan sets out the focussed action we are taking to reduce missed appointments, as part of delivering the Government’s commitment to return to the constitutional standard of 92% of patients having their first treatment within 18-weeks of referral. This includes enhancing communication between hospitals and patients, using the results of artificial intelligence to predict missed appointments, and targeting support to vulnerable patient groups, saving up to one million missed appointments.

The Elective Reform Plan and the 10-Year Health Plan commit to modernising care equitably and inclusively, including ensuring consistency in the availability of information, so that patients, including those that are deaf or have hearing impairments, are supported to attend appointments and have the best possible experience of care.

As part of this, NHS England published a refreshed Accessible Information Standard (AIS) in July 2025. This sets out a specific, consistent approach to meeting the information and communication support needs of service users with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss, and requires that relevant staff are adequately trained. NHS England is supporting implementation of AIS, so that staff and organisations are aware of the importance of meeting the needs of disabled people using services.