1. Education for Patient Rights: Make communication even better This project was funded by NHS Education for Scotland through Communication Forum Scotland. The delivery partners were Capability Scotland and Talking Mats.

2. About the project This project involved 16 people with communication support needs (CSN).They thought about their experience in the health service and how they would like the health service to support them and take account of their needs.

3. Project workshops The project involved 3 workshops. During this workshop the participants with came up with 10 visioning statements, told stories about their experience using the NHS. These stories have been captured on short media clips and each clip links to a visioning statement.

4. Available resources – don’t reinvent the wheel Further internet research was carried out and each statement was linked to relevant web sites that could give NHS staff further ideas and support to develop their services

5. About the people The people in the project had communication support needs for different reasons – some had them all their lives for example people with cerebral palsy, learning disability – Some acquired them in later life through stroke, car accidents, illness, cancer – 5 used high tech AAC as a key mode of communication Regardless of what caused the CSN the experiences of using the NHS were similar. The participants in the project – recognised when they had received good support and when that support had fallen short of good practice – were helpful in suggesting ways for staff to improve services

6. NES Resource 10 visions of what people with CSN want in health interactions http://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk/education-and-training/by-discipline/allied- health-professions/about-nes-ahp/resources-and-publications/making- communication-even-better/vision-statements.aspx For each vision – DVD of people with Communication Support Needs – Reflective practice questions – Signpost to other web resources – Feedback questionaire

7. Next steps Resource is live can be accessed by anyone Dissemination and raising awareness of it as a resource How effective ? – Web data in terms of use – Questionnaire on the site for feedback – Survey of the AHP practitioners it was designed for to see if it has been used Please send feedback / suggestions to either – Elspeth.Molony@capability-scotland.org.uk Elspeth.Molony@capability-scotland.org.uk – lois@talkingmats.com lois@talkingmats.com