What is the Accessible Information Standard and why does it matter?
What is the AIS?
The Accessible Information Standard, 2016¹ is an NHS England standard which aims to ensure that all patients and carers with information or communication needs secondary to a disability or sensory loss have these met. It was updated in July 2025, with further detail on how organisations should meet the standard and adding a review stage.
The Standard has 6 key stages:
1. Identify- Organisations must identify an individual’s disability or sensory loss and the related information or communication need
2. Record- Organisations must record the identified information in a consistent way
3. Flag- These needs must be reliably flagged so they are accessible to everyone who may interact with the patient or carer- this should where possible be automated
4. Share- Organisations must share information on the individual’s needs both internally and externally when referring to other organisations
5. Meet- Organisations must meet the information or communication needs of patients/ carers. The onus is on the organisation to do so proactively
6. Review- An individual’s information or communication needs should be regularly reviewed
The AIS applies to all providers of NHS and publicly funded health and social care in England. The requirements of the AIS are based in the Equality Act, 2010² and there are similar requirements in Scotland and Wales.
Why is it important?
Ensuring people who are disabled or have a sensory loss have information in a way they can understand and the communication support they need, feels like a simple and basic ask. However, data shows that that despite being legally binding, professionally required and ethically crucial- the AIS is not always being met.
RNID data shows that a significant proportion of healthcare professionals have not heard of the AIS. Even of those who had heard of it, many misunderstood its purpose- thinking it was related to subject access requests, rather than accessibility³. Date from the LeDeR reports shows that adults with learning disabilities are dying still 20 years earlier than the general population⁴. Older data shows much of this is driven by a lack of accessible communication support⁵ and more recent evidence shows very little has changed since the introduction of the AIS in 2016. A coalition of charities in 2021 surveyed individuals with a range of communication needs and found that 77% who required information in alternative formats never received these and 67% of deaf people had no accessible way to contact their GP surgery. Critically, although the standard is clear that patients and carers should be able to give feedback and complain in an accessible way only 41% complaints procedures were reported by professionals to be accessible and 89% of patients/ carers with communication needs did not know how to complain⁶.
The AIS particularly focuses on the onus being on professionals understanding an individual’s needs and henceforth following these without an individual needing to repeat them on every encounter. However, individuals with information or communication needs, frequently tell us the frustration they feel of repeating their needs time and time again even within the same organisation or even with the same clinician. This leads to frustration, burn out and a lack of trust towards healthcare providers. The need for disabled people to constantly advocate for themselves and the wider psychological impacts of this is often poorly understood by health and social care services, and the AIS should transfer the onus onto professionals and organisations to become advocates for their patients.
What needs to happen next?
Meeting the 6 stages of the Accessible Information Standard is crucial to provide accessible health and social care to individuals who often face multi-faceted discrimination and lack of access across society. This leads to avoidable health inequalities and premature deaths. Asking individuals how they need to receive information and meeting this need is a fundamentally basic cornerstone of all health and social care interactions, and should be understood and prioritised as such, not seen as an afterthought.
Data also shows several structural barriers to AIS implementation including a lack of training on the AIS⁷ and a lack of resources to support and fund crucial accessibility adjustments such as video relay interpreters⁸.
Organisations need sufficient ring-fenced government funding to be able to provide all required communication support for both planned and unplanned encounters 24/7. With current budgets tight, organisations feel they can’t fund further accessibility adjustments but they must receive the right funding to do so as it is legally and ethically crucial.
Currently, medical students and resident doctors receive no regular training on the Accessible Information Standard and wider NHS staff report extremely patchy access to training also. How can organisations meet the needs of patients or carers when their frontline staff don’t even understand how to ask an individual what they might need? Organisationally relevant training informed by those with lived experience must be given to all healthcare professionals in training and throughout their carers to develop their skills and experience in meeting information and communication needs.
IDA advocates for the strengthening of the legal basis of the Accessible Information Standard and improving access to training on the AIS. We urge all involved in health and social care to join us. A lack of understanding and focus on this crucial standard is leading to avoidable deaths and it is everyone’s responsibility to work together to fix it.
References:
1 NHS England. NHS England» Accessible information standard [Internet]. England.nhs.uk. 2025. Available from: https://www.england.nhs.uk/accessible-information-standard/
2 GOV.UK. Equality Act 2010 [Internet]. Legislation.gov.uk. Gov.uk; 2010. Available from: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents
3 STILL IGNORED: THE FIGHT FOR ACCESSIBLE HEALTHCARE 2025 POLICY REPORT ENGLAND [Internet]. Available from: https://rnid.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AIS-policy-report-England-UPDATED.pdf
4 LeDeR Annual Report Learning from Lives and Deaths: People with a Learning Disability and Autistic People [Internet]. 2026. Available from: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/assets/pdfs/leder/2023-final-updated.pdf
5 Heslop P, Marriott A. The Confidential Inquiry into the Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities – the Story so Far. Tizard Learning Disability Review [Internet]. 2013 Oct 14;16(5):18–25. Available from: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/cipold/migrated/documents/fullfinalreport.pdf
6 Signhealth. Review of the NHS Accessible Information Standard [Internet]. SignHealth. 2022. Available from: https://signhealth.org.uk/resources/research/aisreview/
7 Vass E. Major NHS training gap is putting millions of deaf people at risk [Internet]. RNID. 2026. Available from: https://rnid.org.uk/2026/01/major-nhs-training-gap-is-putting-millions-of-deaf-people-at-risk/
8 SignHealth to close interpreting service after NHS funding dries up [Internet]. Civilsociety.co.uk. 2020. Available from: https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/bsl-health-access-to-close-after-funding-dries-up.html