Care workers given clear face masks to communicate with people with hearing loss, autism and dementia

Care workers and NHS frontline staff across the UK are to be given 250,000 clear face masks so they can communicate better with people with hearing loss who need to lip read and read facial expressions.

The government has announced the clear face masks will be delivered to care workers and NHS frontline workers over the next few weeks and will have an anti-fogging barrier so the face and mouth is always visible.

Around 12m people in the UK have hearing loss and these masks will help those who lip read.The masks will also help those who rely on facial expressions to support communication - for example, people with learning disabilities, autism or dementia, or foreign language speakers and their interpreters.

Minister for Care Helen Whately said: “This pandemic has posed numerous challenges to the sector, so we are always on the hunt for simple solutions to support those giving and receiving care.

“The introduction of clear face masks will help overcome some of the difficulties carers wearing PPE are facing communicating with people who rely on lip reading. If this proves a success I look forward to increasing the supply to make sure whenever a clear mask is needed, there is one available.”

Care providers will get access to the masks through a new pilot system with Local Resilience Forums.

Roger Wicks, director of policy and campaigns at Action on Hearing Loss welcomed the announcement saying it “has the potential to improve the accessibility of health and social care services for those who rely on seeing facial expressions and lip-reading to communicate - including people who are deaf or have hearing loss.”

He added: “Since the outbreak of coronavirus, people have told us continually that they are worried about communicating in health and social care settings where face masks are now in constant use. We know that clear masks have the ability to reduce barriers for both patients and staff across the NHS and social care services.

“People need to understand the information and instructions that they are given by health and care professionals: ineffective communication and misunderstandings have the potential to harm the health and well-being of people with hearing loss.”

Sarah White, head of Policy and Campaigns at national disability charity Sense, also welcomed the move, saying: “The last few months have been particularly hard on disabled people and a part of this are the barriers that PPE brings to many of them in terms of their communication.

“We’ve therefore been delighted to work with the Department for Health and Social Care, and other organisations to raise awareness of this issue and we welcome the introduction of clear masks for use in frontline health and social care services which will benefits millions of disabled people in this country.

"While clear masks won’t work for everyone and they can still present a challenge to some people, it certainly is a great first step which should be part of a clear and cohesive strategy for how we ensure that health and care services remain clinically safe at the same time as enabling disabled people to communicate and feel safe.”