Seldom heard voices visual and hearing sensory loss
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Healthwatch Lincolnshire carried out a piece of work to gather seldom heard voices visual and hearing sensory loss. As a result of these engagement practices the total of people choosing to participate in the survey was 331.
During all of the face-to-face and telephone consultations it has been made abundantly clear that those people suffering serious sight loss feel that there is far too little support or understanding of their needs. A lack of knowledge by service providers is a key area identified as in need of specialist training especially for front line staff. Communication for all people suffering sensory loss was found to be of great concern and it was felt that this was closely linked to the issue of having trained staff who had at least a basic understanding of the needs by this group of people. As ever within Lincolnshire the problem with our transport infrastructure causes many individuals a lot of problems with additional problems attributed to the needs of deaf people in respect of sign language interpreters and the requirement for better co-ordination with them and appointments. Emotional support was an area giving many reasons to feel there is a gap in our services as currently there is no provision for direct support at the point of diagnosis and there is only one organisation providing any level of emotional support within the County and this is by a Charity. It was expressed on a number of occasions that people suffering serious sensory loss felt that too little support is given by our statutory organisations which leads to a far greater burden being placed on Charitable organisations. In respect of sight loss the short term support is felt to be inadequate and it is hoped that long term support will be given by local government and not having to rely upon Charities to do that work. It is generally felt that people suffering with serious sensory loss try very hard to get on with life as best they can but also feel more could be done to help them have an improved quality of life.