Attending a hospital appointment can be daunting. If you struggle to read, hear, understand or communicate these worries can be extreme.

We regularly hear from patients who have major concerns before attending an appointment.

They are worried that they might not find their appointment, or that they won’t be able to read and understand the information or that they won’t be able to communicate with the Doctor and make themselves understood. Together with Kent Association for the Blind, we visited Maidstone Hospital to understand what support is available for partially sighted patients.

Although we found lots of positives we also found much that could be improved. For example, signs and posters around the hospital were too small for our partially sighted volunteer to read.  We have made a number of recommendations and will be working with the hospital to make the necessary improvements.