Since early 2018, staff at Cardiff and Vale UHB have been working hard to improve the experience of patients who are deaf or have hearing loss accessing our services.

What does it mean to be deaf or hard of hearing in a healthcare setting? This is the question that the patient experience team were forced to ask themselves following a challenging meeting with the deaf community in February 2018.

For many people, coming into hospital can be a daunting experience anyway and this is especially true for people for whom there is a language barrier between themselves and the staff providing their care.

UHB staff and members of the deaf community met numerous times over several months as they highlighted areas in which accessibility could be improved and the steps the organisation could take to achieve this.

Following the initial meeting, emphasis was given to improving channels of communication for people with hearing loss to ensure they had equal access to our services.

Members of the deaf community reminded the health board that for many people, British Sign Language (BSL) is actually their first language, not English or Welsh.

For this reason, they emphasised the need for healthcare staff to be mindful of the amount of jargon and technical language they use.

In order to communicate in the language of their patients' choice, the UHB is offering staff training in basic BSL and Deaf Awareness thanks to funding and support from the UHB's affiliate charity, the Cardiff & Vale Health Charity.

Across the board, around 200 staff are trained so far, there are plans in place to train a further 500 staff this year in deaf awareness and basic BSL.

Alongside this, the UHB is rolling out a programme of deaf awareness training to staff who work with patients' medical records, including GPs, so that they can easily identify patients who may need BSL interpreters present at their appointments in hospital.

Further, the health board is currently piloting DAISY (Digital Access Interpretation Services), a Bevan Exemplar project aimed at providing quicker, more cost-effective access to communication support for deaf people.

DAISY can be accessed via iPads, tablets, smart phones or personal computers and through the Health Board's own internal IT system.

We have just completed a video in BSL with members of the deaf community to explain the Concerns process. The Video will be primarily in BSL but will also be subtitled so that it can be used with diverse groups.

The hard work and innovation of the patient experience team is beginning to show as the UHB has become the first NHS health board in Wales to sign the British Deaf Association's British Sign Language Charter.

By doing so the UHB has pledged to:

• Consult with our local deaf community on a regular basis

• Ensure access for deaf people to information and services

• Support deaf children and their families

• Ensure staff working with deaf people can communicate effectively using British Sign Language.

• Promote learning and high quality teaching of British Sign Language.

Ruth Walker, Executive Nurse Director and Lead for Patient Experience at Cardiff and Vale UHB, said, "I am absolutely delighted that the UHB has signed this charter, pledging to continue the hard work we have been doing to improve the accessibility of our service for everyone.

''To have recognition from a national organisation for the work that the team has undertaken in partnership with the deaf community to improving the experience of patients with hearing loss is fantastic.

''At the start of this process, we had some difficult conversations with members of the deaf community who highlighted to us the areas in which we needed to improve and, although we have come a long way since then, we will endeavour to continue to improve patient experience.

''By working collaboratively with the deaf community in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan we can ensure that our services are suitable for those that need them now and those who will come to need them in the future.

''It is my hope that this work is recognised as how things can be put right through consulting and collaboration with our population and that our example is followed across Wales."