The hospital team includes both Deaf and hearing professionals who provide expertise and resources to support the individuals in our care. Service users may have communication needs alongside a mental illness, autism, learning disability or personality disorder. We support them to participate safely and as fully as possible in their care to achieve outcomes required to be discharged from hospital and continue their care pathway successfully.

All of our Mental Health and Deafness services use a recovery model and support each service user to achieve realistic goals by:

• Establishing and understanding their communication style, how it has developed and the factors that are likely to impact upon communication and behaviour
• Understanding the psychological, social, emotional and developmental impacts for people that have experienced language deprivation
• Determining what potential a person has to improve communication and identify strategies and coping mechanisms
• Developing highly individualised and accessible packages of care, in line with the All About Me Deaf Recovery Package

A highly specialised multi-disciplinary team provides supports women on Lower West, including a registered consultant with over 10 years’ experience within deaf services, a dedicated speech and language therapist, and full in-house interpreting team.

We offer a total communication environment with care and treatment programmes that are tailored to each individual’s needs. Our person-centred approach allows us to create bespoke care plans addressing both physical and mental health needs. The service has received national recognition for its pioneering work in making recovery and outcome-focused work meaningful and accessible.

All therapeutic programmes are adapted and delivered to make them meaningful and accessible based on individual language need. Service users have won national awards for service user involvement projects and coproduced the award-winning All About Me Deaf recovery package.

The team on Lower West have experience in preparing complex aftercare packages to give each individual the best chance of success in the next stage of their recovery journey. Cygnet Hospital Bury is a major employer of Deaf staff which is vital to providing accessible and quality services. Our highly experienced and skilled interpreting team alongside a Deaf communication and translation specialist, support high quality care.