Accessibility software company Recite Me is calling on health and social care providers to urgently implement the Accessible Information Standard to make their websites accessible for people with disabilities, impairments and learning difficulties.

The Accessible Information Standard was implemented on 31 July 2016 and is a new information standard that is mandatory for all providers of NHS or adult social care services.

It is being rolled out to make sure that disabled people have equal access to health and social care services and requires that all information provided to service users, patients and carers has to be accessible and understandable for everyone.

The call from Recite Me follows a recent report from deafblind charity Sense, which highlights the barriers faced by deafblind people accessing healthcare in England.

The report stresses the urgent requirement for all health and social care providers to offer more accessible services for patients with sensory loss.

Key findings from the report include:

•        56 per cent of deafblind people have left a GP appointment having not understood what had been discussed.
•        Nearly nine out of ten (85 per cent) deafblind people don’t get information about their healthcare appointments or follow up correspondence in a format that they can access.

Ross Linnett, Recite Me Founder & CEO said:

 “Access to health and social care is a fundamental human right, yet for many disabled people this is at times an impossible task.

“Whether it’s booking appointments with your local GP, finding out information on hospital clinics or navigating the myriad of social care providers, disabled people can often be at a huge disadvantage due to inaccessible websites.

“That’s why we would like to see the new Accessible Information Standard implemented consistently by health and social care providers as swiftly as possible.

“Deafblindness can make it difficult to access information and deafblind people benefit from greater customisation of website content, whether it is changing the font size, colour contrast or having the content read aloud.

“Technology has the power to be an enabler rather than a disabler. Recite Me’s web accessibility software is already used by a range of health and social care providers to make their websites accessible to people with a disability or visual impairment.

“We think that all those organisations that haven’t fully implemented the new standards must follow suit.

“We are urging them to act now and use a reputable, high-quality piece of accessibility software that enables people with disabilities to fully access and use their websites in a way that works for them.” 

It is estimated that around 358,000 people in the UK have a sight and hearing impairment and that approximately 12 million people, or 1 in 5 of the population, have a disability.

-Ends-

Notes to editors

To read the Accessible Information Standard visit: http://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/accessibleinfo/

To read the Sense report visit: http://www.sense.org.uk/content/equal-access-healthcare

About Recite Me

1. Recite Me is an innovative Cloud based web accessibility solution which allows website visitors to customise websites the way they need it to work for them.

2. A live demonstration of the Recite software is available: www.reciteme.com/contact/trial 

3. The software includes text to speech functionality, dyslexia software, an interactive dictionary, a translation tool with over 100 languages and many other features.

4. Ross Linnett is the CEO & Founder of Recite Me and is available for interview or comment. Ross was diagnosed with dyslexia as an adult and founded Recite Me because traditional ‘assistive technology’ was limited to only one computer.