Written question asked by Lord Wasserman (Conservative) on Tuesday, 8 July 2025, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 22 July 2025. It was answered by Baroness Merron (Labour) on Monday, 14 July 2025 on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.
Health Services: Sign Language
- Question
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To ask His Majesty's Government whether they collect data on how many NHS England appointments were cancelled because of a lack of sign language interpreters; and, if so, whether they will publish those data for the past five financial years.
- Original answer
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NHS England routinely collects data on both cancelled and missed hospital appointments, although data is not collected on the reasons why, and cannot be disaggregated to explain causes.
All National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of people with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss, including people using British Sign Language.
On 1 July 2025, a refreshed AIS was published. 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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The answer was corrected by Baroness Merron (Labour)
on Monday, 21 July 2025 on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.
- Corrected answer
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NHS England routinely collects data on both cancelled and missed hospital appointments, although data is not collected on the reasons why, and cannot be disaggregated to explain causes.
All National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of people with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss, including people using British Sign Language.
On
1 July30 June 2025, a refreshed AIS was published. 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.
Secondary information
- Type
- Written question
- Reference
- HL9250
- Session
- 2024-26
- Subjects
- Staff Health services Recruitment Sign language
- Contains statistics
- Yes
- Link
- View this Written question on www.parliament.uk
Librarians' tools
- Timestamp
- 2025-09-05 23:53:50 +0100
- URI
- http://data.parliament.uk/writtenparliamentaryquestion/lords/2024-25/HL9250
- In Indexing
- http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://data.parliament.uk/writtenparliamentaryquestion/lords/2024-25/HL9250
- In Solr
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