Sharing experiences will improve access to service

Action Deafness working with EMAS

Deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people are to share their experiences and ideas with East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) to help improve its services.

Frontline ambulance staff and an emergency ambulance vehicle will be at the engagement event, to be held at the Leicester Peepul Centre on 23 May 2013, and mini-health checks will be available.

EMAS community engagement officer Gulnaz Katchi said: “Action Deafness visited our service last week to tour our Emergency Operations Centre (control) and talk with a frontline and control member of staff. Their suggestions and views will be added to those we receive at our engagement event next week in Leicester.

“This direct engagement helps us better understand the difficulties deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people have when they need to access the emergency services.

“Equally, we can talk about the challenges we face when we need to provide instructions to the caller to help the patient while the ambulance travels to the scene. The event also allows us to help those attending to be more aware about when and how to access 999, particularly using the emergency text service.”

Guests will have the opportunity to tour one of our new emergency ambulance vehicles. Introduced to the fleet last year, they include a loop system for patients with hearing difficulties – a direct result of patient involvement in the design of our new vehicles.

Action Deafness Manager Jaz Mann said: “We have been working with EMAS for a while now, and have developed a strong and productive relationship. We are impressed by their desire to improve their services, identifying ways in which they can be made more accessible to those with a hearing loss – their commitment to change is clearly evident.

“The partnership is going from strength to strength, and hopefully this joint event will give deaf people an important role in improving access for the future.”