Giving voice to deaf patients in Wales

The deaf British Sign Language (BSL) community in Wales faces many challenges in accessing healthcare services and interacting with service providers. The main barrier is language, with little health information available in BSL and BSL–English interpreters present at only a minority of healthcare appointments. As a result, deaf patients are more likely to be underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed or unaware of which medications they should take and why. In this contribution, we use first-person narratives from Welsh deaf BSL signers to explore how healthcare interactions can be improved for this linguistic minority group. First-person narratives allow us to give voice to a patient population that is often not listened to. Following a demographic questionnaire, we asked participants to tell us stories of negative and positive healthcare experiences they have had using open-ended interview questions. For positive experiences, we explored what made the experience positive and for the negative experiences, we asked what can be done to improve their interactions and experiences. Thematic analysis of the narratives then identified common themes and factors that led to positive healthcare experiences. We used these themes and factors to present concrete patient and community-led suggestions that can improve deaf patients’ healthcare experiences in Wales.