Deaf Girly's accessible NHS update

Howdee,

This is the first thankful Friday blog for a while, but it turns out I have a lot to be thankful for.

Firstly, there's news from the NHS accessibility campaign.

Parsons Green Walk-In Centre is going to be trialling two vibrating pagers that will notify people when their names are called! Whoop! It'll be like the food court at Westfield, except better because this is life-changing healthcare, not a bowl of noodles.

I never dared imagine when I started this, that I would get a result like this, but if the pager system is a success – please all get sick (not really) and go to Parsons Green to test it – then it should be rolled out in other walk-in centres, and if it works there, then what's to say it won't become standard practice in other areas of the NHS.

*dances around the room*

But that is not all. There will also be some more deaf (haha, ahem… I accidentally typed dead) awareness training and they've asked me for tips. 

Things that I think would help, make the whole experience better.

Now of course, I'm going to email back with my list. But I'd love to have your feedback on there, too.

I mean, here's your chance, OK only in London for now, to change what people are told about the needs of Deaf, deaf and hard-of-hearing people. And I'm pretty sure word gets around so even if you don't live in London, please let me know if you'd like me to include a tip.

It can be big things such as 'If someone says pardon more than twice, consider changing the way, tone, volume, etc of what you saying.'

To the little things like 'Don't look at the computer screen when talking' or that reception desks in front of windows make lipreading harder.

I need to know. I want to make a difference but it could be a much bigger difference with your help.

I'm going to ask older people too, plus those who've lost their hearing later in life, who don't necessarily have the automatic built-in coping mechanisms that I found I started to put in place probably from the moment I was born. So if you know any of these people, can you ask them what they'd like?

On this thankful Friday, I'm thankful for your feedback, guys. It's enlightening, encouraging and even the negative stuff helps because it can be easy to go after a goal but miss something really important.

I look forward to hearing (ha!) from you peeps. Have a fab weekend.

DG x