Doing more for patients with hearing loss

Durno and Abioye raise important and poignant points in their articles about communicating with deaf people.12 I agree entirely—we need to do more to ensure that patients who have hearing loss are not disadvantaged when they are using NHS services.During my internal medicine training, I learnt from patients who were deaf about SignLive technology (https://signlive.co.uk/), which connected me to a live British Sign Language (BSL) translator on an iPad, allowing me to communicate clearly with patients and their families. This technology was invaluable, and the experience was profoundly positive for me and the patients. They were able to explain to me how frustrating and distressing it can be when such technology is not available—for example, when parts of the hospital have poor wi-fi. Without it, there is no doubt that there would have been delays to patient care.I have also seen patients who attend clinic appointments with a BSL translator….
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