Mental health services for Deaf people are very difficult to provide. This is partly because communication is vitally important in providing mental health services. Because of this, there are three specialist hospitals across the country. Deaf people can be admitted as patients here and receive support from people who know a lot about mental health and deafness.

The Government recognises that mental health services for Deaf people are highly specialised and includes it on the “National Definition Set” – that is a list of rare conditions that require specialist healthcare.

Unfortunately, the way these services are commissioned has not always been very good. Because of this Sir David Carter was asked by the Government to write a report on commissioning specialised services. This recommended that Specialised Commissioning Groups (SCG) be established in each region (10 regions in England). The SCGs are responsible for commissioning specialised services on behalf of the Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in their area.

Because mental health services for Deaf people have not been commissioned very well in the past, the Department of Health agreed to fund SignHealth to work with the SCGs, specialist hospitals and Deaf people to improve the commissioning of Deaf services. SignHealth is supporting the commissioning process to make sure it is the best it can be.

We are in the first year of the project. We want to:

  • Make sure that the specialised hospitals are properly commissioned and funded so they do not disappear. This will give them some stability and improve the quality of service.
  • Involve Deaf people in the commissioning process.
  • Make sure there is a full ‘pathway’ of care. This means a Deaf person should be able to access counselling and local mental health services where these are more appropriate than a specialist hospital.

We are currently working with the three specialist hospitals and commissioners to make this happen.

If you want to know more about the specialist hospitals (in London, Birmingham and Manchester) then information is available in the Mental Wellbeing section.

If you want to know more about our project, then please e-mail campaigns@signhealth.org.uk.