Action for Deafness

Background

Action for Deafness has been helping deaf, deafened, hard of hearing and deafblind people in West Sussex for 15 years. The charity has a contract with West Sussex primary care trust to provide adult rehabilitation audiology services and is also funded by West Sussex County Council to run three resources centres. The centres give information and advice as well as demonstrating and selling specialist assisted listening devices.  In 2009, more than 27,000 people used the charity’s services.

How we helped

More people were being referred to its audiology service than the charity could cope with. So a loan of £40,000 was arranged with Charity Bank to install a second audiology booth for hearing tests. The booth cost £8,000. The rest of the loan was used to fund a move into a new, larger head office. The loan ensured that the charity did not have to dip into its reserves in order to fund its expansion. “It made the difference between using up the reserves and not using them,” says chief executive Jane Shaw.

Impact

The number of patients using the charity’s audiology service has increased by 900 in a year.  The charity is paid by the primary care trust for each patient, so income has substantially increased. The surplus from the audiology contract has been to fund the conversion of the charity’s former premises in Worthing into a drop-in centre for profoundly deaf people, a new service that the charity would not have been able to provide without the expansion facilitated by the Charity Bank loan. There has also been a significant increase in services users coming to the charity’s resources centres. “I no longer feel isolated in conversation and can once again enjoy the television without turning the volume up high,” says one user from Worthing. The last instalment of the loan was paid back in February 2010

www.actionfordeafness.org.uk/welcome-action-deafness