Health and social care providers have legal duties to provide equal access to services.
The Accessible Information Standard (AIS) sets out what you must do to communicate accessibly.
Failure to follow this standard may result in missed appointments and ineffective care. For example, NHS England estimates that the cost of people who are deaf or have hearing loss missing appointments is at least £14m every year.
What the AIS is
The AIS sets out clear guidance on what you must do to make your services accessible to people with disabilities and sensory loss. This includes the needs of parents, guardians or carers.
It establishes a consistent approach to make sure people with disabilities and sensory loss really understand the information you give them, and can participate fully in discussions about their treatment and care.
In England, all providers of NHS or publicly-funded adult social care services must meet the legal requirements of the AIS.
In the other nations of the UK, you still have similar duties under the Equality Act, or the Disability Discrimination Act in Northern Ireland.
Find out more about the Accessible Information Standard on the NHS England website.
How to comply with the AIS
To meet the legal requirements of the Standard, you must:
Identify
Ask people with a disability or sensory loss if they need help to be contacted, to communicate well, and to understand written information.
Record
You must record individuals’ communication and information needs in a standardised way.
Flag
These details, while confidential, must be highly visible or linked to an electronic alert to prompt your staff to take action.
You should use the reasonable adjustment digital flag to record and flag communication needs.
Share
You must share an individual’s communication and information needs with other services as part of a routine referral, or discharge and handover process, in line with data protection requirements.
Meet
People with disabilities and sensory loss must be able to contact your services when they need to, communicate well during appointments and understand information they’re given.
Review
You must regularly check and update patients’ communication and information needs as part of their ongoing care plan.
Guidance for supporting patients who are deaf or have hearing loss
We’ve put together some simple steps you can take to meet the requirements of the AIS:
- communicating with patients
- guidance for GPs
- guidance for hospitals and emergency care services
- guidance for residential care homes
Guidance for patients
Learn about your right to access health and social care, and what you can do if your needs are not met.