Chair's Update April 2025

Welcome to this month’s BSA e-update.

Working in Audiology, it is too easy to be complacent about our Deaf Awareness, but repeated consultation work has shown that it is something that we need to improve.  Our Adult Rehabilitation SIG (ARIG) has stepped up to this issue by writing “Guiding Principles of Deaf Awareness in Healthcare Settings” which is now open for consultation.  If you would like to take a look and feedback, the document and a consultation form is available on the BSA website (https://www.thebsa.org.uk/guiding-principles-of-deaf-awareness-in-healthcare-settings-open-for-public-consultation/).

Given the very important discussions around dementia and hearing loss, look out for an up coming webinar by Kevin Munro titled How can we tackle the problematic narrative around hearing loss and dementia?  This webinar is being hosted by BIHIMA in association with BSA, BAA and BSHAA.   This webinar is on Thursday 24 April 2025, 10:30am – 12pm and the sign up for the link is on the BIHIMA website.

It is great to flag up two key milestones in the James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership raised by Dr. Jenny Chan:

• On 17^th May (Saturday), there will be a priority-setting workshop at Aston University, Birmingham at which 30 adults with lived experience of, or knowledge about, childhood deafness and hearing loss will participate.
• On 7^th June (Saturday), a children’s workshop in London will bring together up to 10 deaf children to share their experiences and rank the list of research questions.

The outcome of this work will be two priority lists—one ranked by adults and another by children.  It will be so interesting to see these.

We are currently planning the BSA AGM in June, and will be notifying members of the details of this meeting very soon.  Looking forward to meeting with you then.