Lorraine's story

People in this video
Lorraine, Practice Manager at The Hunter Family Practice GP surgery
Jill Beattie, Office Supervisor
Elaine Diven, Receptionist

Lorraine:I am Lorraine Hughes, I’m Practice Manager, for Dr Hunter in Brownlow, in Craigavon, Northern Ireland. We became involved in the Louder than Words Charter actually through a little article in the local newspaper and one of the doctors saw the article and thought that it would be a good idea for us to have some deaf awareness training.

So I contacted RNID, who came along and gave us a deaf awareness session, which was a real eye opener and we were all really motivated by it and as a result we decided to take it forward and did an audit in the practice as to ways in which we could improve our services to our deaf and hard of hearing patients and there were a very large number of suggestions and things that we could do to improve and that’s really how it all started… and it snowballed and we did a Start to Sign course with everyone in the practice, which was very good because that enabled us and everyone in the practice literally could meet and greet patients when they came in using British Sign Language and you know give them their appointments times and basic things like that.

As a result, two of the staff, Jill and Elaine, volunteered to do a one-year course at the local college to achieve BSL Level 1 standard and they have completed that and are actually waiting for their final exam results at the moment. They did the whole thing in their own time in the evening and at lunch times could be found practising.

Jill: Yes it has been worthwhile, it has been worthwhile. I have been able to use it on a few occasions … even in the local shops.

Lorraine: So everyone was really motivated by it and we felt that it had such terrific results for the patients and for ourselves. We did a very large number of things so we discovered that there were no flashing lights attached to the alarm system. I approached the Trust and asked about this - as to why there weren’t and eventually after a long process got the flashing lights installed.

We had got our deaf register up and running and we had an alert system on the computer where there is a little pop up to let any of the staff know when they access a patient’s records if they are deaf or have hearing difficulties.

Jill: The patients have been very positive,,, yes very positive… we have a few patients and we have been able to say a few things to them that we wouldn’t normally talk about, and make ourselves understood. So it has been good.

Elaine: It is just worthwhile to have… even to have just a few basic phrases that you can say to patients when they come in just to make them feel that bit more at ease when they come to the doctor’s.

Lorraine: We have discovered as well that there was a text phone round at the main switchboard at the Health Centre which had been installed seven years ago but it was sitting gathering dust because no one had ever been taught how to use it. So I arranged training for that and a lady came along and did Typetalk and Textphone training for not only our staff but also for the switchboard staff as well.

It has been a really rewarding process and we did a survey of all our deaf patients when we completed the process and the feedback we got was all very positive and the patients seemed to really appreciate what we have done.

It also did have a sort of a roll out effect because one of the patients on her survey – we had asked if there were any ways we could improve – and she had actually said it would be great if the pharmacy staff could sign as well and we do have a pharmacy on the premises, which is part of a pharmacy chain. So I spoke to the chief Pharmacist, Brian Dare. Since that they have arranged deaf awareness training for all of their staff in all their local pharmacies and so that’s very good.

Elaine: It’s great to be able to do it when a patient comes in… put them at ease, they are coming to the doctor’s and you can ask how the kids are and how they are. Ideally we would love to be able to learn to tell them more about what they wanted to order on their prescription and things like that. We are hoping to do that down the line which would be nice to have. There’s two of us that do the training at the minute. It’s nice to be doing, we’re trying to teach the other girls in the practice, so it’s a carry on as well - we are showing them a bit of sign language in the afternoons and it is nice if we could all do it.

Lorraine: As a result of our Louder than Words training I got an email one day about a Management and Practice Awards. I completed a report and sent it off and ticked for customer care category and innovation and training, and never thought another thing about it and was quite surprised when recently I received another email saying that we are through to the top three in both categories and have been invited to the awards ceremony in Birmingham on 8 October. So [laughing], so this will also be a bit of promotion for the RNID and the Louder than Words.