'Doctors forced me to tell my deaf dad he had terminal cancer'

A woman has revealed the moment she had to tell her own father he had cancer after the had no-one to speak to him in sign language - despite a legal requirement to provide extra support.

Kate Boddy said she had to "suppress every emotion" as interpreted with British Sign Language for her dying father through countless medical appointments until his tragic death. She added that "his personality just changed", which she feels wasn't because of the cancer, but was due to the lack of access to a BSL interpreter. Kate, from Wales but based in Merseyside, said: “Dad Facetimed me in a panic and just said ‘I can't see. Everything is black.’ I drove him to a hospital which has an A&E especially for eyes – but no interpreter. They did lots of tests and at the end of the day they said to me: ‘can you tell your dad he’s got cancer?’ So I told him. We went home in complete shock.”

Kate’s dad was living in north Wales when he became poorly. “Dad moved up to the Wirral to be with us because it was easier for healthcare appointments because obviously you never know whether you’re going to get an interpreter. Dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2022 and passed away 23 November 2023. He was just 70-years-old.”

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The devastated daughter added: “We went to the GP because he was experiencing floaters in his vision. They said they couldn't book an interpreter for two weeks. The next day, I called again because I just had this gut feeling something wasn't right. I did a telephone appointment and they advised us to go down to an optician and I interpreted at that appointment too.

“They diagnosed a detached retina straight away and said: ‘look, you need to get to the hospital because the longer this is detached, the more sight loss you'll have and it'll be irreparable.’ So we hot-footed it down to the hospital and we were there all day. I was heavily pregnant at the time. They said yes, you do have a detached retina, but we can't operate on it here. You need to go away and wait for contact from the hospital.

“We were waiting for the appointment to come through and in the meantime, dad just woke up one morning, and was completely blind in that eye.” That led to the fateful trip to A&E where Kate was asked to tell her father he had cancer. In the months that followed, appointments and the interpreter provision was so haphazard. We never knew whether there was going to be an interpreter. I was literally at some points both breastfeeding and interpreting.

“I had to suppress every emotion to be able to interpret and that affected me. Even though we knew dad was going to pass away, I don't feel like I said goodbye to him. I don't feel like we had the opportunity to have those conversations because we just suppressed everything and there was no space to talk about anything else other than medical information. Because when we came out of appointments, he still needed additional information to clarify things. All our conversations were very medically based and didn't leave any time for anything else.”

Kate says the experience changed her dad. “Dad became disengaged with his care. It was like he felt he had no control over it, so he disengaged with it. To anyone who knew him he was an absolute gentleman – always laughing, joking, very playful, active, connected to nature, always out walking and things. But his personality just changed, and it killed us to see him slip away before he died. It wasn't because of the cancer. It was because of the access issues.”

A damning report released today, reveals serious and widespread healthcare failings affecting over six million adults in England who are deaf or have hearing loss according to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) and SignHealth. The NHS has called the report’s findings "shocking and unacceptable".

Health services like the NHS, are required, by law, to offer extra support if people with hearing loss struggle when accessing services. Despite these legal requirements, the new report reveals 70 per cent of deaf people and people with hearing loss have never been asked about their information and communication needs when accessing NHS care.

Today’s report also shows that awareness is low amongst NHS staff, with one third saying they are unaware of the NHS Accessible Information Standard. Only a quarter of NHS staff say they can always meet the information and communication needs of patients who are deaf or have hearing loss.

RNID and SignHealth are calling for major changes to ensure the NHS meets the needs of deaf people and those with hearing loss. The charities want the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that work to improve the NHS Accessible Information Standard is properly resourced and prioritised, and lead on a transformation plan to ensure that people with communication needs can access the healthcare they need.

The report urges mandatory training for NHS staff in deaf awareness, as well as the AIS, and for the AIS to be made legally enforceable for the NHS, through the strengthening of legislation on NHS information standards.

An NHS spokeswoman said: “The experiences mentioned in this report are shocking and unacceptable – all NHS services have a legal duty to provide clear and appropriate methods of communication to ensure that patients, including those with a sensory impairment, such as hearing loss, and their families or carers can fully understand everything they need to about their treatment and care.

"NHS England is committed to meeting its responsibilities with the accessible information standard and will continue to support organisations to ensure it is implemented in a consistent way – including with the upcoming publication of a new patient safety framework highlighting the importance of ensuring people’s communication support needs are met.”