A deaf woman was given the wrong vaccine because she was not provided with a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter at her doctor’s surgery, a report says.<\/p>\n
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) said disabled people were being let down by inaccessible communications.<\/p>\n
It said the patient, Samantha, had booked a flu jab but was instead given a Covid vaccine after staff failed to show her a BSL video which would have highlighted the error. She said the experience had had a “profound impact” on her.<\/p>\n
The Department of Health and Social Care said the “deeply upsetting stories” were “completely unacceptable” and NHS and social care organisations had a duty to make services accessible.<\/p>\n
The PHSO investigates complaints about UK government departments, public organisations and the NHS in England.<\/p>\n
It said public services were legally required to support people with their accessible communication needs, which might be due to a disability, neurodivergence or English not being their first language.<\/p>\n
Samantha had booked her flu and Covid jabs for separate weeks and showed a nurse a note on her phone which said she was there for the “flu jab only”, the PHSO said.<\/p>\n
Despite that, the practice said it believed it had correctly established Samantha wanted the Covid vaccine and had got her consent through her grandmother, even though she had early-stage dementia and was not in the treatment room.<\/p>\n
Following an investigation, the PHSO recommended the surgery should apologise and pay Samantha \u00a3450. It has also since signed a contract with a sign language interpreting company.<\/p>\n
The NHS Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board said it was “very sorry” about Samantha’s experience, and that it expected practices to make “reasonable adjustments to support effective communication”.<\/p>\n
The PHSO said it had found disabled people risked not getting vital information about their healthcare, finances or employment because of a lack of accessible formats such as large print or audio materials.<\/p>\n
Since April 2020, it said it had concluded 623 investigations related to reasonable adjustments, of which 496 were upheld or partly upheld.<\/p>\n
The report also highlighted the case of Alan Graham, who was deaf and was being treated for cancer at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust. <\/p>\n