Deaf Awareness Week
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-02580, in the name of Jenny Marra, on deaf awareness week. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes Deaf Awareness Week, which runs from 7 to 13 May 2012; supports the work carried out by organisations across the country that help people who are deaf or hard of hearing; understands that these organisations aim to create a world where hearing loss does not limit or label people, where children who are deaf are able to achieve their full potential and where people value and look after their hearing; understands that 850,000 people in Scotland are affected by hearing loss and that, for around 6,000 people, British Sign Language (BSL) is their first language; further understands that, by 2031, over 1.2 million people in Scotland could have hearing problems; believes that there are many barriers for deaf and hard of hearing people, including access to public services, progressing in the education system, finding employment and overcoming social exclusion, and commends the efforts of everyone contributing to and coordinating Deaf Awareness Week.
17:03
Presiding Officer, thank you for allowing me to bring this debate to the chamber.
As the motion says, deaf awareness week is an opportunity to note the exceptional work across the country of organisations that support people who are deaf or hard of hearing. In my role as convener of the cross-party group on deafness I have seen at first hand the commitment of many groups and their determination to make a difference to the lives of Scotland’s deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
During deaf awareness week this year there were a number of initiatives throughout Scotland, and there were some great ideas for raising awareness. In Edinburgh, for example, volunteers set up so-called doc squads and handed out communication tips to local general practitioner surgeries and health centres. Members might think that doctors would be among the last groups of people in need of such guidance, but the evidence shows that even professionals can benefit from it. Currently, only 45 per cent of people who report hearing loss to their GP are referred on for further support and intervention.
Unaddressed hearing loss continues to be a systemic problem in Scotland. It is estimated that 500,000 people could benefit from a hearing aid, but only 160,000 people have one. That leaves around 340,000 people suffering from hearing loss without a hearing aid to help them. Evidence has also shown that there is a 10-year delay in people seeking help for their hearing loss. It is clear that we can make things better.
That leads me to the most critical part of deaf awareness week and the reason why I lodged the motion. It is imperative that we, as policy makers, continue to tackle the barriers that face deaf and hard-of-hearing people in accessing the help and support that they need to live a life that is free of limits and to gain the ability to reach their full potential. Barriers exist for the deaf and hard of hearing in all areas of life in Scotland. Whether at work, school or home or in doing the weekly shop, what are everyday tasks for most will unnecessarily turn into difficulties for some. A recent survey of 500 shops in Scotland showed that 80 per cent did not have the necessary equipment to make them accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Some 45 per cent of people have said that they have missed their name being called in doctors’ and dentists’ waiting rooms, and there is a 38-point gap in attainment between deaf and non-deaf pupils in secondary 4 in this country.
We can do quite a lot to address those issues. In relation to educational requirements, the National Deaf Children’s Society has stated that deafness itself does not represent a complex additional support need—the complexity arises as a result of the ability or otherwise of local education provision to deliver the appropriate quality, quantity and scope of support to allow a deaf child to flourish.
What is therefore required is greater political awareness in the Scottish Parliament and our local authorities of the issues that deaf and hard-of-hearing people face, coupled with greater political will to invest the resources and create the policy that will help to alleviate the problems. I have heard that claim many times in meetings of the cross-party group on deafness over the past year. In those meetings, many members of the cross-party group have argued that better guidance for and education of public and private bodies would make a great difference in overcoming some of the obstacles that deaf and hard-of-hearing people face.
There is still no guidance from the Scottish Government on what constitutes effective early intervention for deaf children and their families, for example. That means that the families of many newly diagnosed children—90 per cent of whom are born to parents who have little or no prior knowledge of deafness—have little direction on where to turn for support or, indeed, little knowledge of the support to which those children are entitled. As a result, deaf children are immensely disadvantaged from the start of their lives, as the communication between them and their parents becomes increasingly difficult. As the attainment gap between pupils shows, that can prove to be a major impediment to children achieving as they progress through the school system.
Some good work has been done in the Parliament to improve the guidance on specific issues in order to tackle some of the problems that are faced by those who are deaf or hard of hearing. Very recently, for example, my colleague Neil Findlay sought to address the lack of guidance on minimum acoustic standards in classrooms by lodging a motion for debate that encouraged the Government to address those standards. Without minimum acoustic standards in schools, the attainment of hard-of-hearing children can suffer unnecessarily, as they struggle even further to take in vital information and, given all the social pressures involved, have all the barriers that children face in admitting that they have such difficulties.
As Neil Findlay’s motion highlights, guidance on minimum acoustic standards already exists in England and Wales, but not in Scotland. That is a good example of where just a little political will could make a significant difference for deaf and hard-of-hearing children in Scotland. I urge members to support that motion, and I ask the minister to address the issue in his closing remarks.
Another positive development in Parliament, which has been closely monitored by the cross-party group, is my colleague Mark Griffin’s proposal for a British Sign Language bill. The bill would seek to tackle the fundamental problems of low awareness among the general public and in public bodies of the needs of those who are deaf or hard of hearing, and the shortage of BSL interpreters, which, if addressed, would significantly increase access to information and services for many people. On that note, I warmly welcome Paul Belmonte, who I believe is somewhere behind me in the public gallery providing BSL interpretation.
Those two developments—Neil Findlay’s motion and Mark Griffin’s proposal for a member’s bill—are positive steps in tackling what I believe are surmountable barriers that exist for deaf and hard-of-hearing people in Scotland. The challenge that lies ahead for us as we leave the chamber today, as deaf awareness week has passed for another year, is to harness the political will and make available the resources to ensure that we can make those achievable changes and make Scotland an entirely accessible place for those who are deaf and hard of hearing.
17:11
I thank Jenny Marra for bringing the debate to the chamber. I will concentrate my remarks on one organisation with which I have been working over the past year, and its amazing group of volunteers. That organisation is Action on Hearing Loss—formerly RNID—which is about to celebrate its 101st birthday in a few weeks. I welcome its director, Delia Henry, and her staff who are in the gallery tonight. I have had a great year working with Action on Hearing Loss and celebrating its centenary. Last October, at the Scottish National Party conference in Inverness, I hosted an event for the organisation and ate birthday cake with its staff. A few months later, at a reception here in Parliament, I ate more birthday cake with them.
My experience with Action on Hearing Loss began much earlier in the year, on one of my first official visits in my constituency of Strathkelvin and Bearsden, when I visited its hear to help project in the Kilsyth Road sheltered housing. The three-year project is funded by the Scottish Government and the Co-operative. It is volunteer led and provides a maintenance service that—among other things—replaces batteries and tubing in hearing aids. One benefit of that is that it saves audiology specialists’ time, but the most important thing that I learned from visiting the project is that it provides a personalised service for hearing aid users, either in their home or in a location that is convenient for them.
On my visit to the Kilsyth Road sheltered housing, I met a fantastic volunteer called Irene Fyffe—not forgetting Muffin, her hearing dog; I hope that Mr Q does not mind my referring to another support dog. I heard just recently from Action on Hearing Loss that Irene Fyffe—whom I so enjoyed meeting—won a champion volunteer award in the “champions the cause” category earlier this year. She also manages the service at the Golden Jubilee hospital in Clydebank, which was a runner-up in the Patient Experience Network national awards. It is evident that the volunteer-led personalised service from Action on Hearing Loss is not only doing great work for individuals in our communities, but is being recognised throughout Scotland and the United Kingdom for that marvellous work.
As members can see, I am finishing by trying out my BSL in order to say, “Thank you” to Action on Hearing Loss and to all the volunteers who are involved in it.
17:14
I hope that the Deputy Presiding Officer will forgive me because I will have to leave the chamber when I have finished my speech to meet his boss at half past 5. I am referring to the Presiding Officer, not to Ruth Davidson.
I will speak briefly about one specific point—which Jenny Marra made—about access to education for young people with hearing disabilities. It relates to the way in which new schools are constructed and the building standards that apply to their construction. Currently, there is no statutory guidance that sets out mandatory acoustic standards for new-build schools in Scotland. There are mandatory minimum standards in England and Wales and, crucially, compliance with those standards is a prerequisite for securing Government funding, which is how we could ensure that such standards happen.
The National Deaf Children’s Society has carried out research that demonstrates that, for the 3,500 deaf children in Scotland, poor acoustics are a real barrier to their fully accessing the curriculum and education. However, it is not just a case of assisting those who have hearing difficulties—the issue goes wider than that because improved acoustic standards would help all pupils. I have worked in schools where the acoustics are very good and in others where they are not so good. Poor acoustics are a difficulty not just for pupils, but for teachers.
I have had disappointing answers to recent parliamentary questions to the Government. On 2 May, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning advised me that the Government has no plans to introduce minimum acoustic standards for school buildings. That is extremely disappointing and I hope that the Government and the minister will have another think about that. Bringing in minimum standards would be a simple and cost-effective step. I will continue to campaign for that step to be taken because, as well as being simple and cost-effective, it is just one that we should take.
17:17
As members who have spoken before me did, I thank Jenny Marra for, and congratulate her on, securing this important debate, in which I am delighted to take the opportunity to speak. That said, in the office block in Glasgow where my office is, the office of Action on Hearing Loss is a few floors above and the National Deaf Children’s Society’s office is on the floor below, so I have the feeling that if I had not spoken in the debate, I might—quite rightly—have had a few disgruntled knocks on my door.
In her motion, Jenny Marra commends those hard-working organisations for supporting Scotland’s deaf and hearing-impaired community. One of the first video blogs that I did for my website was with the director of Action on Hearing Loss, Delia Henry, who I think is in the gallery. I did it during the festive period at the end of last year, in the midst of the centenary celebrations that Fiona McLeod mentioned. I did a bit better than Fiona McLeod did in that I sampled no fewer than four centenary celebration cakes. It is a tough job.
The point that Delia Henry made is that isolation is one of the biggest problems that members of our deaf communities suffer. What must it feel like to go to a Christmas party, a house-warming or a work night out, and see everyone engaged in copious amounts of banter and yet be simply unable to take part because of the background noise? The idea of having to spend a night in a corner of the room nursing a drink by themselves will put off many deaf people from going out with friends, family and colleagues. We all know too well the dangers that isolation can bring, but sometimes we overcomplicate matters. Not everything requires a strategy or a grand master plan as a solution. Sometimes just taking the time to talk to someone in that situation can do the world of good.
Jenny Marra’s motion also touches on some of the many barriers that our deaf community faces, but we need only scratch the surface to imagine how many additional barriers many deaf and hearing-impaired people from our black and minority ethnic communities face. However, it is heartening that more and more organisations are tackling that issue. I first had the pleasure of visiting NDCS’s BME families project back in 2007. Right from the offset, it amazed me what a difference it made to people just to have the opportunity to sit with other families who were going through a similar experience over a samosa and a cup of tea.
The isolation that is experienced by many BME deaf community members involves not only external factors and the lack of access to services, but a lot of internal cultural factors. Going to the mosque, the gurdwara or the Hindu temple plays a big part in the lives of Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus across the country. It is a matter of great shame that so many of those institutions are so ill-equipped to meet the religious and spiritual needs of their deaf members, so that is something that I want to do a lot more work on.
There is a lot that politicians can do to ensure that we are including people in the deaf community in the political process. I have had the pleasure of holding advice surgeries specifically for the deaf community. They have been well received; I imagine that many members have held similar events. However, I wonder whether political parties do enough in that respect? How many of us went out of our way to reach out to the deaf and the hard of hearing to find potential candidates for the recent local government elections? When we devise party broadcasts, do we make them in a format that is accessible to the deaf community? What about the upcoming referendum campaign, which is quite rightly being described as an incredibly historic moment? We have to ensure that all communities have their voices heard, on all sides of the debate.
There is much food for thought. Once again, I thank Jenny Marra for securing the debate. I hope that organisations such as Action on Hearing Loss have another hundred years of success. There will be plenty of cake for future generations to enjoy, and they will do a lot of good work, too.
17:21
I, too, congratulate Jenny Marra on securing the debate and thank her for her motion. It is not only timely, given deaf awareness week in May, but it deals with a condition that affects many families in Scotland.
I, too, pay tribute to the many charities that support individuals who suffer a degree of hearing loss, and their families. Those charities, many of which have been mentioned today, do excellent work and really make all the difference. We have come a long way since deafness was regarded simply as an unfortunate fact of life, with little more than primitive and obtrusive hearing aids being available for those who suffered from deafness.
My initial awareness of the condition was due to the fact that, in her early 30s, my mother experienced significant loss of hearing. Only as I grew older did I realise how isolating and discriminatory deafness was for her. I realise now how frustrating it was for her when shopping, travelling or just leading her everyday life. Her deafness blocked communication; when communication is blocked, it is frightening. Further, there is the embarrassment of asking someone to repeat what was said and, on repetition, of still being uncertain what was said, and there is the feeling of a lack of confidence about one’s ability to cope.
It was only as my mother got older that I really understood how isolating deafness can be. She tended to shun company because of being unsure whether she could hear, and because background noise, which was amplified by her hearing aid, made the situation more difficult.
I welcome the positive changes that have taken place over several decades, even in the years since the inception of Parliament. The dramatic improvement in visual signs on public transport and elsewhere makes an enormous difference, and the prominence of British Sign Language is another major step forward. It is marvellous to see it being deployed in Parliament this evening to benefit the members of the public who are attending the debate.
The specific support that is now available to deaf children from charities such as the National Deaf Children's Society is inspiring. Thanks to influencers like that body, much good work is being done and will be done. I applaud its efforts to ensure that early-years professionals in health, social care and education understand the need to remain vigilant about emerging hearing loss in children.
Does Annabel Goldie know that I was born with hearing problems and that my hearing loss was not identified until I was in primary 2? I often wonder what would have happened had my primary 2 teacher not identified it. Does she acknowledge the role that teachers play in ensuring that children’s attainment can be developed?
I do, and I think that Kezia Dugdale’s testimony is poignant and makes the point extremely well.
If hearing loss can be isolating for an adult, it can be devastating for a child. However, there have been steady improvements in our schools. Personally, I would always prefer it if a child with a hearing impairment were able to attend mainstream education. As has already been pointed out, there are important preliminary steps that can be taken prior to designing a new school. Neil Findlay spoke eloquently about that, and I have supported his motion on the matter.
Next month, in my own area, I am scheduled to visit the Lenzie headquarters of the charity Deafblind Scotland, which works with adults who are dual sensory impaired. It will be difficult for most of us to imagine what that must be like but, as Jenny Marra rightly pointed out, barriers still exist. Today, as I strolled through Regent Road park on my way to Parliament, enjoying the lovely sunshine, I felt richly blessed to watch a wren on a low branch and to listen to an animated group of long-tailed tits. Let those of us who can see and hear never forget how fortunate we are and whether in politics, driving a bus, selling train tickets, serving in a shop or dealing with the public in some other way, let us show patience and understanding to those who face challenges that we know nothing about.
17:25
I, too, congratulate Jenny Marra on securing the debate.
I want to focus on Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, which was first brought to my attention by Lesley Stewart, a borderer, and her lovely hearing dog, Molly. I recall that some 10 years ago in the first session Lesley and her colleagues brought their dogs to Parliament—which was then at the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland—and many parliamentarians found the meeting to be extremely useful and eye-opening. Hearing dogs not only do significant things for their owners, but provide immeasurable companionship that removes the isolation to which members have already referred. I hope in the coming months to organise a presentation similar to that in the first session with owners bringing their dogs to Parliament and showing what they can do.
What do hearing dogs do? They are trained to alert owners to doorbells, telephones, text messages, alarm clocks, fire alarms and many other things that we take for granted. As I have already said, they also become a channel of conversation between their owners and other people. As soon as people pat the dog, see its jacket saying that it is a working dog for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People and start chatting, the deaf person is immediately drawn in and no longer isolated.
Puppies are socialised for 12 months and receive basic obedience training; they also undergo quite stringent health tests. After that, they go into intensive training. There are currently 750 hearing dogs and since the charity’s launch—this is its 30th anniversary year—it has placed more than 1,600 dogs with owners in the United Kingdom.
I want to quote from the experience of a young hearing dog owner, Sam, who says:
“Ember does lots of different sound work with me ... If mum were to say to her ‘Sam’ she’d run to wherever I was, nudge me, I’d ask her what it was and she’d lead me back to mum.”
His dog also pulls the covers off him to get him out of bed—I could have done with one of those dogs for my own sons, but there we are.
Ember has also helped the family. Sam’s mother says:
“One of the best things for me is that Sam sleeps now. We had nine years of”
not getting much
“sleep. When he takes his hearing aids out he can’t hear anything so he used to get up”
to see
“where we were several times a night”.
The family got burgled and because Sam could not hear he was always anxious that they would be burgled again and he would not know about it. Of course, he has the dog now and his mother says:
“He’s more settled and more confident and I worry less about his safety. People will come ... and speak to him and it makes Sam interact where he wouldn’t necessarily have done before.”
That is one of the huge benefits of hearing dogs for the deaf.
I must conclude by mentioning the borderer, Lesley Stewart, who introduced me to all this, and her wonderful dog, a tiny black wonder known as Molly. I attended a sign language presentation with various deaf and hard-of-hearing people—it turned out to be a bit of a test to find out whether we could lip-read—and I had the privilege of Molly resting her head on my foot for 30 minutes. She was such a charmer. She went to sleep but, unfortunately, so did my foot.
17:29
It is a great privilege to speak in the debate this evening as the deputy convener of the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on deafness.
Prior to being elected to this wonderful Parliament, I had the great privilege of being the client services manager for an organisation called North East Sensory Services, which brought together blind, partially sighted, deaf and hard-of-hearing people. I was privileged to manage a team of social and rehabilitation workers who provided an invaluable service to both communities. In the initial stages, both sides showed some reluctance to come together but once they realised that they had a lot in common, many of the people, who were elderly, realised that they had dual sensory impairments.
One of the first tasks that I had in that post was to ensure that we were providing the services that both groups required. I will focus on those who are deaf and hard of hearing. It was a great privilege to be able to set up the services for lip-reading classes in Moray and Aberdeen. Again, it was a fantastic honour to set up the services for our staff, who all got involved in learning BSL. To that end, I commend Stephen Joyce of Deafblind Scotland, who tried in vain to teach me some BSL. I have some language skills for speaking with deafblind people, but I am probably not a great receiver because I always think that people speak far too quickly on my hand and their spelling is far better than mine. They must use abbreviations.
The work that all such organisations do is immense. I was talking to Delia Henry last night and I asked her what one thing she would like to see brought to the debate tonight. It was a difficult question, but she sought some advice and she said, “Stigma. We need to remove the stigma for our deaf and hard-of-hearing people.” We all have a big job to do in trying to remove the barriers for the deaf and hard-of-hearing people in our society and removing the stigma of having hearing loss.
I commend the work that happens in Grampian. The audiology service in Grampian Health Board is fantastic. A problem is that many people do not go in the early days when they begin to feel that they are losing their hearing. They might not go because of the stigma or because of the fear of being issued with a hearing aid. I went to Grampian’s audiology service and when I was issued with my hearing aid I suddenly realised that I was hearing things that I had not been able to hear for many years. My wife is delighted that she does not have to ask me twice to do something, but I can still turn a deaf ear to some of that occasionally. Having a hearing aid ensures my safety. I am now able to pick up the frequencies of the signal crossings that I could not hear appropriately before.
Neil Findlay mentioned acoustics, and they are incredibly important, whether it be in the classroom at school, college or university, in other public buildings, or in GP practices and hospitals. Noise bounces off hard surfaces. It is essential that we do all that we can to ensure that those who are deaf and hard of hearing are in environments in which they can use what little hearing they might have to the best of their ability.
17:34
Like other members, I congratulate Jenny Marra on securing this debate on deaf awareness week, which will raise the profile of the week inside Parliament and, I hope, among the wider population.
Before I came into Parliament, I had a degree of awareness about deafness. My great-grandparents were a deafblind couple and, when I was growing up, I heard stories about how they coped with everyday life and raising a young family. My great-grandmother would tie a piece of string to my grandmother’s foot while she was in her cot. Because my great-grandmother could neither see nor hear the baby crying, she used the movement of the string to alert her to the fact that the baby needed something. Hearing stories like that as I was growing up brought home the reality of the barriers that deaf people face.
As we have heard, approximately 850,000 people in Scotland have some form of hearing loss, which equates to about one in six of the population, and the number is expected to jump to 1.2 million by 2031. About 5,000 to 6,000 of those people use British Sign Language as their first language. There is a lack of awareness and understanding of BSL among the hearing population, which means that deaf people do not have access to the same information and services as hearing people.
Even where provision has been made to make information available to BSL users, there are often difficulties with arranging interpreters. In Scotland, the entire deaf community has to rely on 80 dedicated sign language interpreters whereas, in Finland, which has a similar population and deaf population, there are 750 interpreters. Access to services across the public sector is piecemeal. A recent report by Action on Hearing Loss on access to social services in Scotland highlighted the wide variation among local authorities on access to just one service area.
Action on Hearing Loss surveyed BSL users regarding their experiences of access to healthcare. Of those surveyed, 61 per cent said that they had put off going to a health appointment because they were worried about communication problems; 68 per cent had asked for a sign language interpreter to be booked for a GP appointment but did not get one; 57 per cent had been confused about how to take their medication because no sign language interpreter was provided; and, most worryingly, 10 per cent had definitely taken medication incorrectly because no sign language interpreter was provided to help them understand the directions from their GP.
When people start taking health risks by missing appointments or taking medication incorrectly, something has to be done. The Government and public authorities, in consultation with BSL users and those with an understanding of the language, need to draft action plans on how they will open up access to information and services. That would allow public authorities to measure their performance against other bodies and to share best practice across Scotland. The plans could be scrutinised by national charities and groups to assist authorities in making progress towards any targets that they set, and we as parliamentarians could scrutinise public bodies, particularly those that come under Government direction, to ensure that they perform satisfactorily.
As Ms Marra pointed out, 90 per cent of deaf children are born to hearing parents, who tend to have limited or no prior knowledge of deafness. If their child then goes on to use BSL, how will they communicate with their parents and brothers and sisters to the same level as hearing children do? Unless the family has the financial means to learn BSL, a child can easily become isolated in their own home. I ask the minister to say how the Government plans to address the issue of families that do not have the financial means to take BSL classes.
17:38
I, too, congratulate Jenny Marra on securing the debate. I thank her for providing us with the opportunity to highlight deaf awareness week. At the outset, I formally recognise the excellent work that is done on behalf of deaf people by a range of national and local organisations and individuals throughout the country. I welcome our visitors in the public gallery and the signer.
Jenny Marra is to be praised for her continuing support in the Parliament for deaf people. As well as lodging several motions on deaf-related issues, she added her name to a motion that was lodged last year by my colleague Jim Eadie.
I thank Annabelle Ewing for taking an intervention, but I ask her please to slow down to enable the signer to keep up.
I thank my colleague Dennis Robertson for that salutary message. I apologise to the signer. I am conscious of the time limit, so I was racing ahead there. I will take Mr Robertson’s advice and slow down.
Last year, Jim Eadie lodged a motion in support of the campaign by the Scottish Council on Deafness to ensure that lip-reading becomes part of hearing loss rehabilitation and that support be given for the training of lip-reading tutors so that that essential skill can be offered to all people with a hearing loss as part of their rehabilitation. I fully support that campaign and I hope that we can see some progress on that in the months to come.
I pay tribute to the National Deaf Children’s Society and to Action on Hearing Loss Scotland. Both organisations do a tremendous amount of work and we have received very helpful briefings from them on the debate.
There are around 3,500 deaf children in Scotland, about 83 per cent of whom are educated in mainstream schools. Of course, being deaf is rightly not regarded, in and of itself, as amounting to a learning disability. It is therefore important that, when it is appropriate, deaf children are educated in the mainstream system. Nevertheless, the statistics give us cause for some concern, because they show that there is an attainment gap between deaf children and their hearing counterparts. That tells us that more perhaps needs to be done to provide more targeted assistance for pupils who are deaf or who have learning difficulties.
I understand that, since 2007, a local record of deaf children pilot project in NHS Tayside and NHS Lothian has enabled healthcare professionals to record a range of information about all deaf children. That information will be extremely useful in assisting local health, education and social care teams to plan their workforce and resources to meet needs and to improve the service that is provided to deaf and hearing-impaired children. The more detailed knowledge we have, the better we can respond to the needs of society.
I am confident that we in the chamber are conscious of the huge impact—it has been alluded to by all the members who have spoken—that a loss of hearing would have on our lives. We must remember that as we seek to formulate policies, so that we ensure that we do our best to get the policy right.
Acoustics in school buildings, in particular, have been mentioned. As Dennis Robertson said, the importance of acoustics should be taken into account in all places of learning. I am not conversant with all the details of that debate, but I support the principle that we have to ensure that every child has the same chance—and it is the best that we can make it—in their learning environment. I hope that we will hear more on that issue when the minister winds up the debate.
Thank you. That is an example of less being more.
17:43
As others have done, I congratulate Jenny Marra on securing the debate and on lodging her motion, which illustrates a number of important points about the value of deaf awareness week. One of the important points that she made is that it gives us an opportunity to recognise and to celebrate the work that is undertaken by a range of organisations that represent and improve the lives of people in Scotland who have hearing loss or deafness. An important part of that work is their raising of awareness of hearing loss, which is a growing issue and one that I think we can do more to tackle.
I was grateful that Action on Hearing Loss offered me the opportunity to have my hearing tested last year at the Scottish National Party national conference. I was delighted when I was given a clean bill of health and informed that the results showed that my hearing is fine. However, when I shared the results with my wife, she was not persuaded. It is important that we take every opportunity to encourage people to have their hearing tested as and when appropriate.
The motion correctly highlights the challenges that we face—in particular, the demographic challenges. As the motion sets out, it is estimated that in the region of 850,000 people in Scotland are affected by hearing loss; by 2031 the figure could be more than 1.2 million people. We have to plan and deliver services in a way that recognises that with the demographic shift to an ageing population profile there are likely to be more people with hearing loss, visual impairment or dual sensory loss, so we need to ensure that we plan services in a way that can most appropriately meet their needs. However, we must also recognise that we have to face up to that challenge while budgets are squeezed as a result of reductions in the Scottish Government’s budget. Although that is a challenge, it also provides us with real opportunities to look at how we are doing things and to see whether there are different ways of doing things that would be much more effective in helping to support people with hearing loss or deafness.
The motion mentions barriers; a number of speakers have spoken about tackling the barriers that individuals with hearing loss may experience. Essential to any approach to tackling those barriers must be the founding principle of ensuring that people with hearing loss or deafness are afforded the opportunity to live as independently as possible: to live an independent life in which they can make the right choices for themselves, have control over how things are done, be treated with dignity and be given the freedom to make decisions. We must keep that in mind when we move forward on tackling the barriers.
I had the great pleasure of visiting the Ayrshire mission to the deaf in Kilmarnock on Monday. One of the big issues that it raised with me was the difficulty that deaf people have in dealing with the corporate world, particularly on the telephone. Many businesses will still not speak to anyone other than the customer on the telephone. Perhaps the Government could look at persuading our friends in the corporate world to allow proxies to represent deaf people on the phone, and for that to somehow be embedded in the system. I am sure that it would be a great help to deaf people.
Willie Coffey has made a valid point. I am aware of the difficulties that people who support people with hearing loss or deafness can have in approaching the corporate world to make representations on their behalf.
That is similar to how some carers find themselves in difficulty in trying to address the needs of a cared-for person. There is more that we can do. For example, we are considering a carers authorisation card that would give carers permission to access information on behalf of that cared-for person. There may be parallels that we can draw from the experience that is being piloted in a couple of health board areas in Scotland. That could also be used with the corporate world by those who have hearing loss.
Several members mentioned British Sign Language—an issue that Parliament has recognised for some years. The first British Sign Language debate was led by Winnie Ewing and we had a signer in that evening. I remember attending that debate and recognising the value of BSL. As a Government, we recognised BSL as a language in March 2011. We are trying to address some of the British Sign Language-related issues. We are working with a number of organisations, including the Scottish Council on Deafness, the British Deaf Association, and the Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters to develop and to support an infrastructure to train and register BSL teachers, to make available an increased number of sign language classes, and to increase the number of qualified sign language interpreters.
Mark Griffin made the valid point that clearly there is more for us to do, and, as a Government, we will consider what further action can be taken with our partners in addressing the issues. We will also give consideration to Mark Griffin’s member’s bill when he introduces it.
Some members referred to issues relating to the paediatric audiology service. In 2009, we brought in new standards to improve the quality of paediatric and adult audiology services. We are now into the third year of the process. Each health board undertakes an annual assessment to evaluate and track the extent and nature of progress. So far, the indication is that improvements are taking place, but I accept that there is still space for improvement.
The Government is determined to continue to make progress. That is why we have made a commitment to bringing forward a new sensory impairment strategy. We want to allow the various stakeholders to help to form how we will develop policy in the coming years to ensure that we meet the demographic challenge that we face, that we continue to build on the improvements that we have made in recent years, and that progress continues.
Will the strategy include or consider minimum acoustic standards in schools?
We are going to consult on the strategy, so those who wish to make representations on that issue will be able to feed them in. I do not want to say what will and will not be in the strategy.
I mentioned the challenge that we face, but as I said, there are opportunities as well. We will continue to work with our partners to try to ensure that we realise those opportunities and that we continue to improve services for people in Scotland who have a hearing loss or suffer from deafness.
Meeting closed at 17:51.