- Bolton NHS Foundation Trust and Bolton Deaf Society won the HSJ Patient Safety Award for improving access to Martha’s Rule for Deaf patients
- Deaf patients worked alongside NHS teams to create accessible escalation pathways and BSL resources
- Project enables Deaf patients and families to raise concerns quickly and confidently
An initiative that aims to improve safety for Deaf patients in Royal Bolton Hospital has won a national patient safety award.
The project ‘Martha’s Rule – Equitable Access for Members of the Deaf Community’, which is a collaboration between Bolton NHS Foundation Trust and Bolton Deaf Society, won the Patient Involvement in Safety Award at the HSJ Patient Safety Awards 2026.
Their work ensures Deaf patients can access Martha’s Rule, a national initiative designed to help patients and families escalate concerns about a patient’s condition, in a safe, accessible and equitable way.
Through co-production, Deaf community members worked alongside our clinical and operational teams to identify and address the reliance on verbal communication within escalation processes.
Together, they co-designed and tested new approaches, including:
- Accessible escalation pathways that do not rely on spoken communication
- British Sign Language (BSL) resources explaining how and when to use Martha’s Rule
- Improved tools and processes to support Deaf patients to raise concerns independently
Nicola Caffrey, Corporate Business Manager for the Medical Director at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust and who was involved in the project, said: “We are so very proud of this amazing team and to be recognised at the HSJ Patient Safety Awards for the work we did together to provide more equitable access to Martha’s Rule for members of the Deaf community was incredibly special.”
The project has removed barriers to escalation, enabling Deaf patients and their families to raise concerns with confidence, autonomy and without delay.
Michael Stead, Deaf Advocate, said: “This collaborative work will help to raise awareness of this issue, prevent it from happening again and hopefully reach other areas of the NHS, which will in turn help more people within the deaf community. These are relatively small quite straight forward changes, however the positive impact is huge.”
The partnership has also led to further improvements beyond Martha’s Rule, including enhanced access to BSL interpreters and ongoing collaboration to improve healthcare accessibility for Deaf communities.
