Loud and Clear: Our manifesto for the 2026 Senedd Election

The next Government must urgently tackle this inequality by:

• Fully implementing the All-Wales Accessible Communication and Information Standards, ensuring robust governance and monitoring structures are in place, and deaf people and people with hearing loss have equal access to NHS Wales care.
• Mandating training for NHS staff so they understand and apply the Standards in their work with deaf people and people with hearing loss.
• Guaranteeing the accessibility of the NHS complaints process and patient body groups, so that our communities’ concerns are recognised, represented and captured in improvement priorities.
• Equipping the Welsh NHS with the right technology to record, flag, monitor, share and meet the communication needs of deaf patients and patients with hearing loss, and making this a central priority for Digital Health and Care Wales.

The next Government must take action by:

• Ensuring that everyone has access to high quality NHS audiology services within primary and community care, tackling the short-term problem of long waiting lists and creating a service fit for the future, building on the Future Approach to Audiology.
• Delivering an NHS wax removal service that is available for everyone who has a medical need, ending the postcode lottery. This must also include safe and consistent advice on self-management of ear wax.
• Promote regular hearing checks for people in Wales and introduce a national hearing check for people aged 50 or over to enable early identification and intervention. We also want to see a digital hearing check added to the NHS Wales website, health board websites, and the NHS Wales app to encourage people to regularly check their hearing.

We want to see the Disability Information Hub:

• Reflect the full pathway of recruiting, retaining and supporting disabled employees of all ages, including those who become disabled or develop hearing loss within the workforce.
• Highlight examples of best practice and case studies where employers have improved practice and have seen benefits.
• Provide deaf and disabled jobseekers with information on what employment support schemes are available to them, with additional information on specialised support and accessibility.
• Be co-produced with deaf and disabled people and employers to understand their needs and experiences, and ensure it is regularly reviewed, updated and promoted.
• Provide an accessible map of the employment support schemes and resources available to deaf and disabled people across Wales.

The next Wales Government must:

• Identify and address the gaps in employment support that have emerged in Wales due to the loss of varied funding models, and assess the impact on groups who are more likely to be unemployed or further from the labour market.
• Ensure all employment support services in Wales are accessible to people who are deaf or have hearing loss, at a minimum, and that accessibility is embedded in the commissioning process for future support providers.
• Ensure that, within more specialised services, for example those targeted at disabled people or people aged 50+, support is tailored to the needs of deaf people and people with hearing loss, understands their needs and engages with the distinct barriers they face.
• If progress is not made to improve employment of people who are deaf or have hearing loss, consider commissioning specialist support.

We want to see the next Government:

• Publish a robust national BSL strategy with clear, measurable targets and mechanisms for governance and monitoring.
• Co-produce implementation guidance for public bodies with BSL users across Wales as a first priority.
• Build capacity for implementation by:
  • Creating a workforce strategy for BSL interpreters and translators to support implementation and to ensure public services are accessible for BSL users.
  • Ensuring staff within essential public services like the NHS, local government, employment support providers and transport providers have deaf awareness training and understand how to support Deaf BSL users within their services.

We want to see the next Government:

• Quickly publish a short, medium and long-term Disability Action Plan to tackle the inequality faced by deaf and disabled people in every aspect of their lives, based on the insight and contributions of deaf communities.
• Ensure this Action Plan has a clear vision, with measurable, time-bound targets, underpinned and scrutinised by a robust governance mechanism to ensure progress is regularly monitored and reviewed against milestones.
• Take a cross-Government approach to addressing the barriers deaf people and people with hearing loss face across transport, healthcare, employment, local government and wider public services, with access at the heart.
• Improve the data and evidence base on the experience of deaf people and BSL users in Wales to ensure this informs policy and captures outcomes. Current data does not fully reflect the varied experiences of deaf people, BSL users and people with hearing loss, and BSL users in particular are likely underrepresented.