Last year, hundreds of deaf people and people with hearing loss shared their experiences of Access to Work with us. Their responses painted a worrying picture of a system that was becoming harder to access and less effective at providing the support people need to do their jobs. Today, we’re launching our 2026 Access to Work survey....
✦ The floor
Discussion
Signed responses from readers of the wire.
No actionable clinical change — this is a UK advocacy call for public survey responses about a government workplace support scheme, with no direct clinical practice implications.
Declining effectiveness of the UK's Access to Work scheme may leave more deaf and hard-of-hearing people underserved in the workplace, with downstream implications for the broader hearing-loss community that audiologists advocate for.
- 01RNID is collecting updated experiences from deaf and hard-of-hearing people about the UK Access to Work scheme.
- 02A 2024 RNID survey found worsening access and declining support effectiveness within the scheme.
- 03The campaign is advocacy-driven, aiming to build evidence for policy change.
- 04No clinical research or product data are involved — this is a public engagement initiative.
- 05Audiologists working with vocational rehabilitation clients may wish to be aware of potential funding gaps in this scheme.
A 2024 RNID survey revealed that access to the Access to Work scheme has worsened and support effectiveness has declined.
quotepartially supported