Summary
A local watchdog's survey and focus groups with 90 Deaf, deaf and hard of hearing people about booking and attending GP appointments in Buckinghamshire.
Key findings
- Appendix 1, Data analysis, warns that people could submit the survey more than once, so response counts can exceed the number of distinct individuals. Its thematic counts can also overlap and should not be summed across questions.
- An online survey (7 February to 30 April 2023), publicised through social media and community and service providers' newsletters, and three focus groups reached 90 people registered with Buckinghamshire GP surgeries; their median age was 68, and 34% said they were Deaf or had profound hearing loss.
- Asked the main way they communicated with people inside the surgery, 56 of 85 respondents named speech, 11 lip reading, 8 taking a friend, relative or support worker, 3 an in-person BSL interpreter and 1 a hearing loop.
- Reports that people whose hearing aids can use a loop preferred a loop to depending on lip reading alone, but that not every surgery has one and, where there is one, not all staff know where the equipment is kept or how to use it. One respondent said the practice's Friends had funded hearing loops that staff did not use "other than badly at the reception desk".
- Several people wanted to know why hearing loops or apps such as Sign Live could not be offered routinely, and some who relied on family, friends or social workers to help them communicate felt this did not let them keep parts of their medical history private.
- Its proposed charter for GP practices includes offering a speech-to-text app or hearing loop, and collecting patients from the waiting room or giving a non-audio prompt when staff are ready to see them.
Limits
The report does not state project funding; the Government category describes the watchdog, not an identified grant for this survey. A self-selected local sample (91% White British, 68% women) reached through social media, newsletters and hearing-loss groups; the loop findings are respondents' accounts, not checks of equipment, and the question on communication counted only the main method. The cover dates the report May 2023; Healthwatch England's library lists it on 12 July 2023.
Read the original
Cited in
- What works in hospitals, clinics and pharmacies, where a misheard word can matter most?Partly answered
- Do portable and counter loops work, and how should they be set up and used?Partly answered
Cite this source
Healthwatch Bucks. GP surgery care when you're Deaf, deaf or hard of hearing. Healthwatch Bucks (reports library of Healthwatch England). May 2023. https://nds.healthwatch.co.uk/sites/default/files/reports_library/20230712_Bucks_Accessing%20GP%20Care%20with%20Hearing%20Loss%20Report.pdf (accessed 13 October 2026).
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