RECOGNISING a significant feedback opportunity, Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust hosted a dedicated engagement event with members of the deaf and hearing loss community to share its Fit for the Future strategy and learn how local healthcare services can become more accessible and inclusive.
The event was co-designed with deaf people following the Trust’s first public Fit for the Future engagement session, ensuring that discussions focused on the issues that matter most to people with hearing loss. The session provided an opportunity for Trust leaders and specialist colleagues to listen, learn and work collaboratively with attendees to identify priorities for improvement. The Trust’s Fit for the Future strategy sets out how healthcare services will evolve to provide more care closer to home, make better use of digital technology, improve access to services and place greater emphasis on prevention and community based care. The strategy aligns with the NHS vision of shifting care from hospital to community settings, from analogue to digital services, and from treatment to prevention. Discussions during the event centred on three key areas identified by the deaf and hearing loss community, namely interpreting services, digital services and accessibility and staff behaviour and organisational culture.
Colleagues with expertise in these areas attended the event to explain improvements already underway and to hear directly from patients and service users about their experiences. As part of the feedback session, attendees identified a number of priorities that should be taken forward jointly by the Trust and the deaf and hearing loss community, including giving deaf patients the ability to book interpreters directly, improving accessibility within the NHS App, particularly for British Sign Language (BSL) users, addressing attitudes and behaviours experienced by deaf patients, ensuring care closer to home works effectively within community and primary care services and improving and expanding the use of QR code technology in emergency departments and across other services. The Trust has committed to working collaboratively with the deaf and hearing loss community to drive improvements in these areas over the coming months.
Group Chief People Officer Dr James Fleet, said: “This was a hugely valuable event which gave us the opportunity to share our Fit for the Future strategy directly with members of our deaf and hearing loss community, while also listening carefully to their experiences and priorities. We know that if we are to deliver truly accessible healthcare, we must design services alongside the people who use them. The conversations were honest, constructive and insightful. We heard clearly about the importance of accessible information, interpreter provision, digital inclusion, staff awareness and the need to ensure care closer to home works effectively for deaf patients. We are grateful to everyone who took part and shared their views.
“This event is not the end of the conversation. We are committed to continuing this work in partnership so that together we can make meaningful improvements and ensure our services are accessible, inclusive and fit for the future.”
Gail Worsey, an advocate worker of the Sandwell Deaf Community Association added: “Attending this event made a real difference because it showed that the Trust genuinely wanted to hear from deaf and hard of hearing people about the challenges we face when accessing healthcare. It was encouraging to see that the event had been designed with our community and that senior staff took the time to listen to our experiences and ideas. The discussions were particularly important, and it was reassuring to hear about some of the improvements already being made, but also to know that our feedback will help shape future changes.
“I hope this is the start of an ongoing partnership between the Trust and the deaf community. By continuing to work together, we can help create services that are more accessible, more inclusive and better able to meet the needs of deaf and hard of hearing people across Sandwell and West Birmingham.”
The event forms part of the Trust’s ongoing commitment to engaging with local communities and ensuring patients, carers and residents play a central role in shaping resilient healthcare services.