Spotlight on the Deaf Community

This week is Deaf Awareness Week. To celebrate we are publishing the feedback we heard from the Deaf community in Medway.

In January we had the pleasure of chatting with 40 people from the Medway Deaf Club. This report details everything that they told us and makes a number of recommendations.

The Deaf community took the time to tell us their experiences which included:

• challenges to get interpreters for NHS appointments

• difficulties communicating about appointments due to lack of email and text options

• concerns and anxieties about interpreters not turning up or not being available when they wake up from surgery

• reliance on family members to act as interpreters in emergency situations