Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing mandatory (a) Accessible Information Standard and (b) deaf awareness training for NHS staff.

Employers in the health system are responsible for ensuring that their staff are trained to the required standards to deliver safe and effective treatment for patients, and to deploy them in the best way to ensure the delivery of health services to their populations.

Since 2016, all National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the recommended approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss.

NHS England has been undertaking a review of the AIS to help ensure that the communication needs of people with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss are met in health and care provision.

A revised AIS will be published in due course. In the meantime, the current AIS remains in force, and therefore there should not be a gap in provision for people using services. NHS England is working to support implementation of the AIS with awareness raising, communication, and engagement, and a review of the current e-learning modules on the AIS. The intention is to ensure that staff and organisations in the NHS are aware of the AIS and the importance of meeting the information and communication needs of the disabled people using these services.