Deaf Awareness Week

Today UCL are celebrating today’s Deaf Awareness Week Theme ‘Health’

UCL Deafness Cognition and Language (DCAL) Research Centre (www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk ) has launched a new suite of online short Deaf Awareness courses designed for Health Professionals (audiologists, doctors, nurses, professions associated with health and administrative staff).

Watch a video clip from the course

In this sample clip from the course, a heath professional talks about the importance of good communication.

Deafness is the third most common disability in the world, affecting one in six people (11 million) in the UK and causing an enormous life-long personal, social and economic impact. As a result of an ageing population and increasing life expectancy, it is anticipated that by 2035 the incidence of hearing loss will increase to one in five (15.6 million).

There is evidence that patients with hearing loss encounter significant barriers and are dissatisfied with healthcare services*. As deafness becomes more prevalent, healthcare services will have to improve awareness of deafness among their staff to provide effective healthcare to this group. Deaf awareness will lead to substantially improved communication between clinicians and patients and improve patient satisfaction.

Since July 2016, all organisations providing NHS or adult social care have had to meet the Accessible Information Standard, which ensures that disabled people have access to information that they can understand and are provided with communication support they might need. The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) inspections assess compliance with the Accessible Information Standard (section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012).

To improve deaf awareness in the health care sector, DCAL has developed a suite of online short Deaf Awareness courses designed for Health Professionals. Each 2-hour course is targeted at a particular role group and aims to enable a better understanding of the communication needs of deaf and hard of hearing (HoH) patients and provide practical strategies to employ in the workplace that will aid service provision. You will learn through watching videos of patients’ real life experiences and the perspectives of healthcare professionals, coupled with reflective thinking points and quizzes to test knowledge http://bit.ly/DAHealthProfessionals

Deaf Awareness: Online Courses for Health Professionals

Why this courses?

Learn to:

• employ appropriate behaviours and languagewhen interacting with deaf and hard of hearing (HoH) patients.

• distinguish between communication preferencesand adapt your communication to the patient’s needs.

• recognise legal requirements(Equality Act, 2010 and Accessible Information Standard, 2016) to provide reasonable adjustments related to disability.
• identify commonly used assistive technologiesand apply them to the needs of the patient.

AND  Learn at your own pace.

Discounted rates available through particular professional bodies.

For further information about our suite of online Deaf Awareness courses for Healthcare Professionals please follow this link http://bit.ly/DAHealthProfessionals

*Communicating in a healthcare setting with people who have hearing loss BMJ 2010; 341 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c4672