- Aim: Drive the Department of Health (DH) action plan to ensure the standard 18-week waiting time target from referral to assessment for a hearing aid is met and consistent with RNID’s vision for a locally accessible service.
- Impact: DH has introduced a six-week target from referral to assessment for a hearing aid and through our campaigning and lobbying work, the average time people have to wait for an assessment has fallen dramatically with most areas meeting the six-week target.
However, this still leaves many people waiting to have their hearing aid fitted. An 18-week target from referral to fitting is due to be in place for December 2008 and we continue to work to ensure quality of the service is maintained and that the 18-week target is met.
- Aim: Ensure equitable access to cochlear implants across the UK by 2010 by driving through reform of the commissioning system and launch campaign to end the ‘postcode lottery’ for cochlear implants.
- Impact: We have been actively involved in the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) consultation about the availability of cochlear implants and to ensure they are routinely available to adults and children who could clinically benefit from them and wish to have one.
Our commissioning guidance has helped inform commissioners on the benefits of the procedure and how they can be best commissioned. We have also directly helped individuals get access to a cochlear implant whose commissioners refused to fund them.
We have undertaken new research on parents’ perceptions of bilateral cochlear implants to ensure informed choice.
NICE has now published its guidance. Primary Care Trusts can no longer refuse to fund implants for children and adults who need and want them.
- Aim: Lobby the government to support and fund the Access to Communication in English (ACE) report’s key recommendations by March 2008 to increase the number and quality of language service professionals (LSPs).
- Impact: We have continued to work with the ACE coalition to push the government towards improved access to and availability of LSPs. Further progress is dependent on accessing sustainable funding streams.
- Aim: The above aim and impact is available in BSL
- Impact: You should be seeing a video here instead of this text. Please visit the Macromedia site to get the Flash Video Player.
- Aim: Secure funding in Northern Ireland for British Sign Language (BSL) and Irish Sign Language (ISL) interpreter and tutor training courses from the Department of Employment and Learning by December 2007.
- Impact: Funding was secured for an introductory training course to run from January to December 2008. Further funding of £1.3m has been secured to develop longer term training courses in interpreting and tutor training from March 2009 to March 2012 under Department of Employment and Learning Spending Plans. £250,000 has been secured for promotion of the languages and access to public services for sign language users under the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure.
- Aim: The above aim and impact is available in BSL
- Impact: You should be seeing a video here instead of this text. Please visit the Macromedia site to get the Flash Video Player.
- Aim: Increase public awareness of tinnitus and of the support available to manage the condition. Secure 100 million opportunities to see information and reach 130,000 people through a top-quality information service.
- Impact: We achieved more than 300 million media opportunities to see information about our tinnitus work.
Our website www.tuneouttinnitus.org.uk, launched in July 2007, has so far been visited by around 47,000 visitors. We also answered 3,497 Tinnitus Helpline enquiries and distributed 4,000 copies of our magazine Tinnitus Focus to audiologists and other professionals who support people with tinnitus.
We distributed more than 136,000 leaflets about tinnitus through various channels throughout the UK, including GP surgeries and audiology clinics. We held two successful study days for audiologists and hearing therapists to share research methods and results.
- Aim: Increase regional coverage of outreach information services by 20% including through development of a new tinnitus outreach service. Continue to develop RNID’s website as the destination of choice for information on deafness and hearing loss to reach 120,000 visitors a month.
- Impact: Our outreach information team of staff and volunteers increased the number of face-to-face contacts by 17% across the UK to 37,846.
We also made 3,289 face-to-face contacts with people with tinnitus though our outreach information work, a 50% increase on last year. Our website was visited by an average of 116,389 visitors a month.
- Aim: Successfully integrate the Early Years Support Programme into the new National Children's Centre’s Programme with 75% of local authorities in England using the early support framework by March 2008.
- Impact: We secured £980,000 to facilitate smooth transition to the Aiming High for Disabled Children programme. The programme is now integrated as the standard approach for early years across local authority programmes throughout the country. It is also being looked at as a model for other early years services in other countries.
- Aim: Publish guidance on early years services covering all aspects of deafness and hearing loss.
- Impact: Guidance has been delayed due to major changes in early years framework and will now be published later this year once changes have been accounted for.
- Aim: Drive forward innovation in the delivery of the RNID Typetalk service through full evaluation of at least three leading voice-recognition software solutions.
- Impact: Three leading software packages were fully tested to investigate whether re-voicing conversations, using automatic speech recognition, could be used as an alternative to Relay Assistants typing. The results showed that the accuracy was still considerably below the 98% target currently achieved.
Further development, and investment by BT, will be needed before a switch to this exciting new technology can be considered, therefore we are continuing with the current methods.
- Aim: The above aim and impact is available in BSL
- Impact: You should be seeing a video here instead of this text. Please visit the Macromedia site to get the Flash Video Player.
- Aim: Review the technical performance, usability and design of 75 products and services of particular benefit to people with hearing loss and tinnitus.
- Impact: More than 50 products were reviewed for the One in Seven membership magazine in more depth than originally planned. Thirty-six new items were tested for our retail arm and a few were evaluated for external companies. We also reviewed services, such as high definition television, and their relevance to people with a hearing loss.
- Aim: Develop and trial innovations, including virtual signing applications, to improve access to information delivered through electronic formats such as websites.
- Impact: The RNID New Technologies team launched a new service to provide BSL signed content suitable for websites and other electronic applications and has worked with several organisations during the year.
Avatars (computer generated images of people) with better facial features and slicker movement were selected to create more realistic signs in virtual signing applications.
Virtual signing research work with both the BBC and Scottish Qualifications Authority was successfully completed.
- Aim: The above aim and impact is available in BSL
- Impact: You should be seeing a video here instead of this text. Please visit the Macromedia site to get the Flash Video Player.
- Aim: Lobby two high street retailers to encourage the consumer electronics industry to provide guidance to help people who are deaf or hard of hearing make informed choices about accessible equipment.
- Impact: A number of approaches to high street retailers failed to persuade them to do more to promote the accessibility features of the products they already retail. We will continue to push them to do more and will consider alternative ways to bring about this much needed result.
- Aim: The above aim and impact is available in BSL
- Impact: You should be seeing a video here instead of this text. Please visit the Macromedia site to get the Flash Video Player.
- Aim: Improve real-time communication between deaf people by developing software-based communication solutions like TalkByText.
- Impact: Using 'open standards' to ensure compatibility, RNID has developed a family of award-winning software products to allow real time, character by character text conversations between PCs, and with existing textphones. It is also possible to use the software with RNID’s Typetalk service.
The Business Edition has been successfully launched and a version for use on home PCs will become available to buy during 2008.
- Aim: The above aim and impact is available in BSL
- Impact: You should be seeing a video here instead of this text. Please visit the Macromedia site to get the Flash Video Player.
Anne's story
Anne received her cochlear implant at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham and looks forward to hearing her grandchildren’s voices.
“It’s absolutely wonderful – it’s exceeded all my expectations. I haven’t been able to hear this well for years. It’s so exciting … I can’t wait to see and hear my grandchildren."
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Did you know...
3,497
Tinnitus helpline enquiries were answered.