Sight loss campaigners deliver inaccessible health information letter to Wes Streeting

The issue of inaccessible healthcare was highlighted when representatives from the UK’s leading health charities delivered a letter to health and social care secretary Wes Streeting on 2 December

The mock hospital appointment letter, which was delivered to the Department of Health and Social Care, was missing vital information that a patient would need in order to attend a medical appointment.

It aimed to show Streeting how much information can be missed when NHS communications do not take blind and partially sighted people’s conditions into account.

Inaccessible formats regularly lead to missed medical appointments, delayed test results, and misunderstood treatment instructions, the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) said.

Often, medicine labels and letters from doctors cannot be read by blind and partially sighted people, the charity added.

Representatives from the RNIB, Macular Society, Mencap, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, Sense, SignHealth and Thomas Pocklington Trust were on hand to deliver the letter.

The letter was part of the RNIB’s My Info My Way campaign, which highlights patients’ right to receive health and social care information in their preferred format.

More than three quarters (77%) of people with accessible information needs reported rarely or never receiving health or care information in alternative formats in a 2021 survey, the charity said.

This is despite the Accessible Information Standard being a legal requirement for all organisations that provide NHS or publicly funded adult social care since 2016.

A revised draft of the Accessible Information Standard has been prepared by NHS England but its publication has been delayed for a year and a half, RNIB said.

Anna Tylor, the RNIB’s chair of trustees, said: “Our message is simple – people with communication needs have a legal right to accessible health information and communications, and not receiving it puts our health and wellbeing at risk.”

Accessible communication might include large print or British Sign Language, or be in easy read, email, audio or braille format.

Lack of accessibility in patient communications can increase the risk of late diagnosis and worse health outcomes in people with sight loss, RNIB said.