Accessible Information Standard in M20

The Accessible Information Standard aims to make sure that people who have a disability or sensory loss get information that they can access and understand, and any communication support that they need.

AIS tells organisation how they should make sure that patients and service users, and their carers and parents, can access and understand the information they are given. This includes making sure that people get information in accessible formats. The Standard also tells organisation how they should make sure that people get support from a communication professional if they need it, and about changing working practices to support effective communication.

Healthwatch Manchester visited eleven (11) pharmacies in the M20 area which incorporates Withington and Didsbury. All pharmacies allowed us to assess their knowledge and implementation of the AIS however only two of the pharmacies had knowledge of what the AIS is.

Only one of the eleven pharmacies we visited provided access to a BSL relay service such as SignVideo and four of the pharmacies provided a hearing loop for hearing impaired service users.

However, it was good to see that seven of the pharmacies provided Large Print materials or at least had the capacity to produce these resources for their visually impaired service users.

We therefore concluded that more pharmacies in the M20 area should familiarize themselves with the AIS via the materials we provided them with. Moreover, the majority of pharmacies in the M20 area need to provide a British Sign Language(BSL) relay service such as SignVideo which provides instant access to BSL interpreting through video conferencing.

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