Health Services: Hearing Impairment
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to introduce mandatory visual display screens in (a) GP practices and (b) medical waiting rooms to ensure (i) deaf and (ii) hearing impaired patients are made aware of their appointment.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock
The Department has no plans to mandate screens in general practices. However, a revised Accessible Information Standard (AIS) was published on 30 June 2025, to ensure that people who have a disability, impairment, or sensory loss can access and understand information about National Health Services and receive the communication support they need to use those services. Nationally, all NHS organisations and publicly funded social care providers are required to be fully compliant with all aspects of the standard.
NHS England is working to support implementation of the AIS with awareness raising, communication, and engagement, and a review of the current e-learning modules on the AIS.
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