Shropshire Deaf & Hard of Hearing Forum

The Forum has a membership from a diverse range of organisations, representing Hard of Hearing, Deafened and Deaf people's interests.

Its purpose is to share knowledge of services provided for people with a hearing loss from Audiology, Social Services, the Community Council, the Voluntary Sector, Sensory Inclusion Service, (Teachers of the Deaf), Lipreading courses and from Hard of Hearing and Deaf clubs.

It will aim to:

• Share knowledge of participants' services and improve signposting
• To provide a communication route between voluntary and statutory organisations
• To engage with the Voluntary & Community Sector Assembly's wider role

The forum will examine how Shropshire can respond to the challenges set in the following Department of Health documents:

• Transforming adult hearing aid services for patients with hearing difficulties, (June 2007), and improving access to Audiology, (March 2007).
• 18 week Commissioning Pathway (2007)
• Fully Equipped

All the documents promote closer communication and partnership between all the relevant agencies

The Forum covers Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin, and is attended by local representatives of the Hearing Loss Voluntary Sector, (Hard of Hearing group representatives, Hearing Concern Link representative, Shropshire Deaf Children's Society, National Association for Deafened People representative, RNID West Midlands representative, Voluntary Support Service representative, and other agencies, the Community Council of Shropshire, both PCTs, Sensory Impairment teams of both Local Authorities, local Audiology services, specialist education services, Age Concern, etc.)

The Forums discussions are supplementing and promoting the local efforts to implement the National Government strategies in relation to hearing impaired people and to achieve improved co-ordination across the hearing loss sector. For further information about Shropshire Deaf & Hard of Hearing Forum, please contact Tom Kane on 01952 418056.