What you need to know about the Accessible Information Standard (AIS)
NHS England has recently published a long-awaited refreshed version of the Accessible Information Standard (AIS).
The AIS, first published in 2016, is designed to ensure that disabled and sensory impaired people can receive information and communication support when accessing health and care services.
The existing AIS had five steps requiring service providers to identify, record, flag, share, and meet people’s communication needs, but our Your Care, Your Way campaign in 2022 found many providers were failing to to meet people's needs.
The refreshed AIS adds a sixth step, to ‘review’ needs, which means that where an individual’s needs change, organisations must proactively review and update information about this.
What has changed?
Changes to the standard include:
- A new and sixth, “review” stage requiring NHS and publicly funded adult social care services to proactively check that patients’ and service users’ needs are up to date in their records and that they are being met. This is in addition to the five stages asking services to identify, record, flag, share, and meet people’s communication needs.
- All health and social care organisations should appoint a senior named role responsible for overseeing the standard is being put into practice.
- Clarifying the role of commissioners, such as Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and councils, who should ensure that providers in their area follow the standard.
- An expectation on all providers and commissioners to identify an AIS lead responsible for ensuring the standard is met as well as an executive-level role holder with responsibility for the standard in their remit.
- An expectation that all NHS and social care organisations assess how well they are meeting the standard. This can be done through a new NHS provider self-assessment tool and the first assessments should be completed by March 2027.
