The British Sign Language Campaign: nine months on

Earlier this year, Synergy spoke to student radiographer Saraaz Khalil about his efforts to spread awareness of the struggles deaf people face in healthcare. Now, nine months later, he shares his progress on the project, and how it has evolved

Having trained at the University of Derby, Saraaz Khalil knows the difficulties facing deaf patients when trying to access healthcare. Derby has the second highest population of deaf service users in the country, and the highest population of deaf people in the country relative to its population, according to the 2021 census.

In February this year, Synergy spoke to Saraaz, now a qualified Diagnostic Radiographer at Bradford Teaching Hospitals, about a project he was hoping to implement to spread awareness of the challenges deaf people come up against when trying to access healthcare.

There are currently 87,000 deaf people who use British Sign Language (BSL) nationwide, according to the British Deaf Association, but only one interpreter for every 53 deaf people. As both a student and an imaging department assistant, Saraaz saw this as an enormous gap. “It was a massive warning sign,” he says. “If you can’t communicate, you can’t confirm key safety checks. That underpins my role as a Diagnostic Radiographer, but also across the hospital trust.”

Fortunately, Saraaz saw an opportunity to help change this with the British Sign Language Campaign.

First steps

Saraaz’s journey to implement his campaign began with presentations and speeches at hospital sites and events, including the UK Imaging and Oncology Conference (UKIO) this year, the European Federation of Radiographer Societies (EFRS), the Royal Derby and other European Congress Boards. Before that, Saraaz also featured in an earlier edition of Synergy magazine, where he spoke about his hopes for the future of the campaign. 

Since then, Saraaz explains, a lot has happened. After his interview in March this year, he developed the BSL Guide, a pocket-sized handbook that allows staff to make use of some basic BSL, relevant to the healthcare setting. The handbook’s small size makes it easy to transport, and Saraaz’s fingers are crossed that it will act as a prompt to increase engagement with BSL.

This guide has already been used across healthcare sites in Derby – and Saraaz is hopeful that he can get the guide implemented in local teaching trusts and integrated care system. “There’s no reason I can’t implement it across the UK,” he says.

The guide has travelled with Saraaz across the conferences and healthcare sites he’s visited, including to the artificial intelligence conference held by the European Society of Medical Imaging Informatics in October, the Baltic Congress of Radiology in Latvia and soon the British Medical Ultrasound Society, where he will be delivering a presentation and actively advocating the use of the BSL Guide to improve accessibility across the Young Investigators and General Medicine categories.

Having recently become the newly qualified representative for the Diagnostic Imaging Advisory Group – the spokesperson for newly qualified radiographers with the SoR – as well as Support Workforce Committee group member, Saraaz also wants to actively endorse the use of the BSL Guide and improve service provision for deaf healthcare seekers. “It’s been a busy transformation,” Saraaz admits. “But I found it very easy, ultimately, because if you care about the change you’re implementing, it ignites a fire in you, not only to actively embrace these changes but also to be an advocate for them going forward.”

If you care about the change you’re implementing, it ignites a fire in you

First steps

Saraaz’s journey to implement his campaign began with presentations and speeches at hospital sites and events, including the UK Imaging and Oncology Conference (UKIO) this year, the European Federation of Radiographer Societies (EFRS), the Royal Derby and other European Congress Boards. Before that, Saraaz also featured in an earlier edition of Synergy magazine, where he spoke about his hopes for the future of the campaign. 

Since then, Saraaz explains, a lot has happened. After his interview in March this year, he developed the BSL Guide, a pocket-sized handbook that allows staff to make use of some basic BSL, relevant to the healthcare setting. The handbook’s small size makes it easy to transport, and Saraaz’s fingers are crossed that it will act as a prompt to increase engagement with BSL.

This guide has already been used across healthcare sites in Derby – and Saraaz is hopeful that he can get the guide implemented in local teaching trusts and integrated care system. “There’s no reason I can’t implement it across the UK,” he says.

The guide has travelled with Saraaz across the conferences and healthcare sites he’s visited, including to the artificial intelligence conference held by the European Society of Medical Imaging Informatics in October, the Baltic Congress of Radiology in Latvia and soon the British Medical Ultrasound Society, where he will be delivering a presentation and actively advocating the use of the BSL Guide to improve accessibility across the Young Investigators and General Medicine categories.

Having recently become the newly qualified representative for the Diagnostic Imaging Advisory Group – the spokesperson for newly qualified radiographers with the SoR – as well as Support Workforce Committee group member, Saraaz also wants to actively endorse the use of the BSL Guide and improve service provision for deaf healthcare seekers. “It’s been a busy transformation,” Saraaz admits. “But I found it very easy, ultimately, because if you care about the change you’re implementing, it ignites a fire in you, not only to actively embrace these changes but also to be an advocate for them going forward.”

If you care about the change you’re implementing, it ignites a fire in you

Stumbling blocks

Since he last spoke to Synergy Saraaz’s work has been largely focused on the BSL Guide and attempting to implement it across healthcare trusts – but roadblocks haven’t made this easy. Officials at the NHS, who Saraaz spoke to through the allied health professional workforce, explained that his BSL Campaign would be difficult to implement because he was a student.

However, now that Saraaz has graduated, the best way to get the BSL initiative considered on a national level is to get it actively initiated and distributed across one trust. Once that has been successfully delivered, it will also need audits to determine standard operating procedures and policies. “That’s why they were a bit concerned,” he explains. “That paperwork is difficult to create and implement. I’ve spoken to the manager and the senior team – they’re completely on board. 

“Once I’ve created the policies and delivered them, they’ll verify and make adjustments and, once it’s been actively implemented across one trust, it can be accessed. Once that’s done, getting it nationwide won’t be a problem.”

Support and guidance

Saraaz has been able to focus on laying the groundwork for a greater push for the BSL campaign. This started with him looking into existing legislation and what the standard operating procedures are, as well as what audit documents and risk management considerations are needed.

Observing that kind of clinical governance, administrative and legislative paperwork has helped him develop a foolproof implementation plan. “When you’re newly qualified, you’re walking on eggshells,” Saraaz adds. “You’re still getting the hang of how to work, what the departmental workflow is. Ideally, you don’t want to ask too many questions, to the point it becomes exhaustive. But once you’ve gone through all that, you just have to be brave and have a conversation with senior management – let them know what it is you want to do.

“Being transparent and open means that, 99 per cent of the time, they’ll be more than happy to advocate for you, because it’s part of our scope of practice. And if you’re doing it, other people will think why can’t we do it? Hopefully that will lead to another project, and another.”

Inspiring others to take action is key to Saraaz’s campaign. Being among the workforce has helped him get perspective on what the staff need to feel empowered, and to help encourage take up of his project. “Ultimately, the goal is to improve patient care,” he says. “By doing this, we’re taking a step forward to improving the patient pathway, whether that be at the start of the examination or at the end. All those steps helped me early on, because I had no clue what I was doing. I had to create the path as I went along.”

Preview of the Radguide

More about the BSL Campaign

The Radguide is still in the development phase. In future, it will be accompanied by an electronic troubleshooting document with visual recordings, with the publishing of a book to complement it.

For any enquiries, please contact Rad_Guide_ on Instagram, or Radguideltd@outlook.com

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