Warrington & Halton Hospitals Trust (WHH) - update

 A number of initiatives have been put in place by Warrington & Halton Hospital Trust in response to the consultation report, including:

·      a programme of Deaf awareness training for staff

·      raising awareness throughout the trust with ‘Sign of the week’

·      development of a visual alert/prompt to staff for awareness when patients are admitted who require communication support e.g., BSL Language, Braille

·      Initiation of an interpretation dashboard to monitor the usage of interpreter services including British Sign Language.

Our ultimate aim of the report was always to bring  hospital management together with those people in the Deaf community who took part in the consultation to work jointly in improving access to their service. This is now in place with the Head and Deputy Head of patient experience, and the Chief Nurse of WHH coming to the local Deaf centre to work directly with the community.

Some examples of further improvements include:

·      A new model for Deaf people accessing maternity care to ensure that their care plan includes interpreter support

·      poor internet reception in accident & emergency department has been addressed with boosters to ensure that video interpreter services can be accessed in an emergency

·      deaf access is a consideration in all and any new project/policy being discussed

·      a second interpreter service has been procured to ensure that all appointments and in-patient needs can be supported

·      the delivery method for deaf awareness training for staff has been reviewed to improve take-up

·      representatives from the Deaf community have been requested to speak at a medical staff training event.

In our original consultation only 5% of respondents stated they received an interpreter when accessing WHH. In a recent snap survey (Jan 2025) of people who had attended those hospitals in the last 6 months 85% of respondents stated that they had received an interpreter -  this was a much smaller number of respondents, but shows a clear improvement.

Meetings with WHH managers and the Deaf community they serve are continuing with further planned this year.