‘Accessible information directs and defines a specific, consistent approach to identifying, recording, flagging, sharing and meeting the information and communication support needs of patients, service users, carers and parents, where those needs relate to a disability, impairment or sensory loss‘. NHS England
A lack of access to information and communication support has significant implications for patient choice, patient safety and patient experience, as well as directly impacting upon an individuals’ ability to manage their own health and wellbeing.
Video will provide you with one way of meeting some of your responsibilities under the Accessible Information Standard and showing the regulators that you are making the progress required on your journey to conforming.
This quick guide will help you understand how to use video and its related resources to meet the Accessible Information Standard within your organisation.
1. Use video in treatment and care pathways
Adding short and simple videos to your treatment and care pathways is an obvious first step. They provide visual and audio dimensions to written documents and webpages, making your communication more visual and accessible, very quickly.
Our videos or library of videos to provide you with a quick way of getting video live and in use in your organisation.
2. Add Subtitles
It is easy to add online subtitles to video, meaning that people that are hard of hearing can benefit from the visual attributes of video.
We can add online subtitles to everyone of our videos because they’ve already been prepared and are ready to go.
You can also add foreign language subtitles if you want make sure that your material is accessible to any specific ethnic populations. This video explaining the journey of care through pregnancy benefits from both English and Polish subtitles. Read our case study to find out more.
3. Add British Sign Language (BSL)
You can also create a version of any of our videos with sign language included (see below for an example). You will see we have made the signer more prominent as it helps makes the video even more accessible. The price for creating a BSL version is £60 per minute of video
We can create sign language videos for you within a week, and if required, can provide signing in either the standard national language or one of 14 regional signing dialects.
The simplest way of providing access to these videos is to add a paragraph on your webpage highlighting that BSL videos are available, and provide a link to the individual signed video. If you’re using a service like Browsealoud on your webpage, this will automatically highlight the availability of the BSL videos.
4. Offer Audio Files
Video files can easily be converted into “audio only” files that you can share with patients, service users and carers who are experiencing difficulties with their sight. Here is an example of an audio file using the maternity video featured above.
Most of our video files can be converted to audio files for you without the need for any adjustment. But we can also add additional voice descriptions to the files where necessary, perhaps to explain to the listener what is happening in any video clips that aren’t narrated.
5. Educate your staff
One of the key things you need to do is to make sure your staff know about the Accessible Information Standard and what their responsibilities are. Educating staff on a one-to-one or face-to-face basis can be expensive and time consuming so we have produced a short video explaining the key facts about the Accessible Information Standard. On this page you can purchase and personalise the video and be ready to start using it within a week of placing your order.
We also have a version of this video with BSL signing and subtitles.
6. Inform patients, service users, carers and your community
Lastly, you could produce your own video providing information to your community (see here the example from Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust) on what you are doing to meet the requirements of the Accessible Information Standard. It could include a brief explanation of the AIS and the support you need to offer, as well as explaining the journey you are on, and the actions you are taking.
You may well decide on the content of this video in conjunction with your User or Steering Group, and of course it would make sense to add subtitles and create a BSL version!
Once you have your video, you can load it on your website, making it easy to share with the public and your key stakeholders, by sending a link to them through email and social media.
We can work with you to produce this video within just a few weeks, so take a look at our production page to find out more about our service and prices.
Here to help
We hope that our top tips are helpful to you in providing some useful ideas on how to use video to conform with the Accessible Information Standard. If you would like any more information, please call us on 01626 833937 or email [email protected]
Visit NHS England for more information on the Accessible Information Standard.
