Partnership aims to give disabled patients a voice in NHS care

Capability Scotland and Talking Mats have launched a new partnership project which aims to give disabled patients a 'voice' when they are using healthcare services.

The project, which has been funded by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) will tackle the barriers often experienced by people with communication support needs when they are in hospital or using other related healthcare services.

Dianne Clyde lives in Capability Scotland's Lanarkshire Houses service.  She has no verbal communication and requires support with all aspects of her day-to-day care.  During a stay in hospital Dianne felt very isolated when staff relied on her Capability support team to explain her care and medical needs. This often meant she had to wait for personal or medical care until they were present.

Yesterday (26^th January), in the first of two events taking place at Capability's Edinburgh headquarters, disabled people with a range of impairments and conditions, including Dianne,  came together to share their experiences of using NHS services. They also put forward suggestions on how services can be improved to meet their communication needs.

Capability and Talking Mats will use the information gathered at the events to inform the development of an online training resource which will help NHS staff provide the best possible service to people with communication support needs.

Capability's Senior Policy and Consultancy Manager, Elspeth Molony, explained: "When we think about improving access for disabled people we tend to think about removing physical barriers.  However, communication is also a barrier which can make it difficult for many disabled people not only to participate in everyday life but, crucially, to access services they need such as healthcare and therapy services.

Capability Scotland is therefore delighted that NES has made it possible for us to work together with Talking Mats on this project. It addresses an area that is of concern to many people who use our services and disabled people in general."

Lois Cameron, Co-Director of Talking Mats commented: "Talking Mats is excited to be working with Capability through Communication Forum Scotland and funded by NES . Good communication is so fundamental to health care and many health staff recognise that they need support in order to address the health care needs of people with communication support needs. We are hopeful that  being able to link the many resources that are available together for busy health staff to access easily  and identify and begin to work on resource  gaps will create an internet learning resource that will impact positively  on clinical practice."

Helen McFarlane the AHP programme director at NES added: "I am delighted that two member organisations of Communication Forum Scotland are working together on this exciting education initiative. The learning resources will make an excellent contribution to improving the healthcare experience of people with communication support needs and bring to life the NES AHP education strategy called The Next Chapter and our commitment 'to make communication even better'."