Campaigns

On day 25 of the continuing failure of subtitling, signing and audio description services, Channel 4 have confirmed that the crisis could continue until mid-November. This is because not only did the incident at Red Bee Media damage the equipment providing these services, but Channel 4’s own back-up systems also failed.

As promised in our update yesterday, we continue to push on your behalf for the problems about subtitling to be resolved – particularly on Channel 4. The problem has already gone on for 20 days and this is unacceptable.

We wanted to share with you a new update on the subtitling issues which have affected the BBC, Channel 4, and Channel 5 over the last few weeks.

Like a lot of you, we’ve noticed the subtitling issues on Channel 4, Channel 5 and the BBC: things like subtitles only appearing after a lag – or not appearing at all. We know the value of subtitles when watching TV and the frustration when they’re not provided, so we want to see these problems fixed.

We were disappointed to see no subtitles on any of the content from GB News this week. We campaign for inclusivity in every part of society, so we are writing an open letter.

Our Director of Policy and Campaigns, Roger Wicks, explains the stance we and a number of disability charities are taking on the government’s upcoming National Disability Strategy, and how we believe the government can improve on its current flawed approach to creating the strategy. The Disability Charities Consortium We are a member of the Disability Charities Consortium (DCC), which brings CEOs and public policy leads from the UK’s leading influential not-for-profit disability organisations together to work with the government to ensure...

Our Director of Policy and Campaigns, Roger Wicks, shares some of the key achievements you helped the Policy and Campaigns team to make happen in 2020. Roger Wicks interviewed on Sky News Happy New Year! 2020 was tough for a lot of people. The COVID-19 pandemic created more barriers and challenges for deaf people and those with hearing loss and tinnitus. But, despite this, we achieved some incredible things last year. In the Policy and Campaigns team, we worked with a variety of...

A recent committee meeting shows Staffordshire and Stoke clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have yet to act on the overwhelming evidence of the benefits of hearing aids. On 14 September, councillors within Staffordshire’s Healthy Select Committee, which monitors and evaluates local health decisions, questioned Marcus Warnes, the Accountable Officer for the six CCGs in Staffordshire and Stoke. The Committee asked Mr Warnes what progress had been made in determining who will be eligible to receive hearing aids across the county, and...