- Aim: To evaluate the performance and potential benefits of products and services to people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
- Impact: We evaluated more than 70 products for our membership magazine, One in Seven and for the RNID Products catalogue, Solutions, enabling people to make informed decisions about the products that can improve their lives. We placed particular emphasis on products that alert people who are deaf or hard of hearing to events in the home, including emergencies such as fire.
- Aim: To support our members in campaigning for improved access to lipreading classes.
- Impact: We encouraged people to tell education providers and central and local government about the importance of lipreading classes. This was done to great effect in Essex. Essex County Council was charging £186 for a 60-hour course (among the highest fees in the country) for classes that used to be free. Learners themselves, supported by RNID, spearheaded a campaign after classes started to close. As a direct result, the council agreed to pay the fees of all existing lipreading students and make free classes available to new learners.
- Aim: To consult our members on their needs and experiences, to ensure that we are providing services and campaigning on the issues that matter to them most.
- Impact: Our
annual survey continues to be highly successful, with a response rate
of almost one in three. We will use the results, and comparisons with
earlier surveys, to inform our continuing work in improving access to
health care and other services for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
An online survey taken by 630 members revealed that their main problem when watching TV was subtitles, closely followed by background noise. Typical subtitling problems were their incompleteness, poor sense, poor spelling and unavailability, especially on satellite and cable channels, and on internet-based 'catch-up' television. These crucial results will inform the direction of our future TV access campaigns.
- Aim: To ensure that we continue to receive valuable support from our members and to enable them to get the most from their membership.
- Impact: 369 members upgraded their membership to Life Membership status, creating extra revenue for RNID and allowing members to enjoy a range of new, extra benefits. We created 'Your say', a members-only part of our website where members can share information and experiences relating to deafness and hearing loss and published The Facts about Hearing Aids, a clear, accessible, 'one-stop' publication, free to members.