The Equality Act 2010: The Law That Promised Equality and Legalised Exclusion
Fifteen years ago, Britain introduced a law it said would transform the lives of disabled people. A law that promised dignity, fairness, and equal access to the services everyone else takes for granted. A law that was meant to draw a line under discrimination once and for all.
But for Deaf people, that promise never materialised.
On paper, the Equality Act 2010 looks bold and progressive. It reads like legislation designed to level the playing field. Its language is confident. Its intentions appear sincere.
Yet the reality tells a very different story.
Because behind the polite wording and high-level commitments lies a legal framework built on loopholes, vague definitions, and a striking lack of enforcement. A framework that has allowed organisations across the UK to exclude Deaf people; openly, quietly, and entirely within the boundaries of the law.
This is not an oversight. It is not a misunderstanding. And it is certainly not a series of rare mistakes.
It is a structural failure, written into the architecture of the Act itself.
The purpose of this article is to expose that failure: to show how a law designed to create equality has instead normalised exclusion, and to explain why modern Britain urgently needs a complete redesign of how equality is defined, delivered, and enforced.
When “Equality” Costs £1,500 More
When I needed treatment at a private hospital, I did something simple and something the Equality Act 2010 says I am legally entitled to do.
I asked for a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.
Their answer was polite, brief, and entirely unlawful:
“We can’t provide one here.”
But the alternative they offered was even more revealing.
They told me I could have an interpreter… if I travelled to another hospital within the same group where the exact same procedure cost £1,500 more.
In that moment, the part of me that spent years studying law paused and thought:
This is exactly how a legal right becomes a luxury
Because that one exchange exposed an uncomfortable truth about equality in Britain:
Deaf access is seen as optional, not fundamental.
Communication support is treated as an add-on, not a basic requirement.
Equality exists but apparently only if you can afford the premium version.
And at the heart of it lies a deeper misconception: the assumption that BSL is just another language on the menu, like asking for Spanish or French.
But BSL is not a preference.
It is a legally recognised language, the primary means through which Deaf people access information, safety, consent, and dignity. It is a right, not an upgrade.
Imagine telling a wheelchair user: “We don’t do ramps here, but there’s a building down the road that does - it’ll just cost an extra £1,500.”
Most people would call that discrimination instantly. But when the barrier is communication instead of a staircase, the discrimination becomes less noticeable; easier to excuse, easier to justify, easier to normalise.
And that’s the danger.
Modern discrimination rarely looks dramatic. It rarely looks hostile. It rarely shouts.
Instead, it hides behind admin systems, email templates, and the quiet shrug of “unfortunately, our policy is…”.
It slips through gaps the Equality Act never closed. It reappears as customer service decisions, hospital logistics, or “booking limitations.” It arrives softly and often with a smile.
And because it is delivered so politely, it doesn’t feel like discrimination, even when it clearly is.
Which brings me back to my law background and I found myself thinking, go on then, let’s put these skills to the test, because the analysis says everything.
A Legal Reading of the £1,500 Example
Here is what the Equality Act actually requires.
1. Duty applies (Section 29)
Medical treatment is a public service. The legal duty to make reasonable adjustments is automatic. There is no “optional” access.
2. Provision, Criterion or Practice (PCP)
Their practice of offering treatment without interpreter provision, and redirecting Deaf patients to a more expensive location, is a PCP.
3. Substantial disadvantage
A Deaf patient who cannot understand consent, risk, or aftercare information faces a clear and serious disadvantage. This easily meets the legal threshold.
4. Auxiliary aid
A BSL interpreter is explicitly recognised by the Equality Act and the EHRC as an auxiliary aid.
5. Reasonableness
Interpreters can be booked. They are readily available. The cost is minimal for a private hospital chain. There is nothing unreasonable about this adjustment.
6. Justification
Charging a Deaf patient more because they need access is unfavourable treatment arising from disability (Section 15). There is no lawful justification.
So legally?
This situation amounts to:
Failure to make reasonable adjustments (Sections 20-21)
Discrimination arising from disability (Section 15)
A potential breach of the Public Sector Equality Duty (Section 149)
And yet inside that hospital, no one thought they were doing anything wrong.
Why?
Because when a law is built on vague wording, undefined terms, and voluntary interpretation, discrimination becomes bureaucratically invisible. It becomes something organisations feel permitted to do even as they insist they are compliant.
Exclusion doesn’t happen through dramatic acts. It happens through admin decisions. It happens through “policy.” It happens through the quiet confidence of systems that have never had to change.
That £1,500 moment wasn’t just a personal inconvenience. It was a case study in how the Equality Act has allowed equality to be priced, negotiated, and sometimes simply denied; all while maintaining the appearance of fairness.
And this is why Britain needs a redesign.
Historic Framing: Philanthropy, Not Infrastructure
To understand why the Equality Act repeatedly fails Deaf people, you have to look not just at the law but at the mindset that existed long before it. A mindset that still shapes decisions today, quietly and consistently.
For decades, Deaf and disabled people were viewed as people to be helped, not people with enforceable rights. Support was framed as kindness, not obligation; assistance was charity, not equality.
So when organisations started thinking about accessibility, they didn’t see it as part of how they deliver services. They saw it as:
something generous to offer,
something that showed good values,
something tied to CSR statements, diversity weeks, or branding exercises.
It was never treated as the foundation of their operation; the same way safety, finance, or compliance are. It was treated as optional. Extra. Something to add if time, budget, and goodwill allowed.
That mindset never went away. It simply grew up with nicer language.
Even today, many organisations genuinely believe that if they “try their best,” or “care about inclusion,” or “raise awareness,” then they are being accessible even when whole parts of their service remain unusable for Deaf people.
They confuse intention with impact. They confuse statements with systems. They confuse visibility with equality.
In other words: inclusion is still treated as philanthropy, not infrastructure.
This is how we end up with a culture of performative inclusion, polished statements, celebratory campaigns, and visual signals of care, but no actual redesign of the structures that cause exclusion in the first place.
A society can feel proud of its kindness while still failing at its obligations. It can applaud awareness while ignoring access. It can believe it is progressive while keeping the foundations exactly as they have always been.
The Equality Act should have been the turning point that shifted the entire country from help to rights, from effort to outcomes, from goodwill to infrastructure.
But because the Act is built on vague definitions, loose wording, and voluntary interpretation, it reinforces the very culture it was supposed to change.
It sits neatly inside a system that rewards intention, excuses inaction, and allows equality to be something you say you believe in instead of something you are structurally required to deliver.
What the Equality Act 2010 Actually Says
At first glance, the Equality Act 2010 looks like a landmark piece of legislation. It replaced nine separate laws including the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 with a single, supposedly stronger framework designed to protect disabled people.
For Deaf people, several sections should provide clear, enforceable rights to communication access. In theory, these are the parts of the Act that should ensure fairness.
What follows is what the Equality Act actually says; translated into plain, human English, without the legal fog.
Section 20 - The Duty to Make Reasonable Adjustments
This is the core of the Act. It tells organisations they must take “reasonable steps” to remove barriers that put disabled people at a disadvantage.
For Deaf people, that means providing:
BSL interpreters
captioning or transcription tools
accessible communication technology
alternative formats
any support needed to prevent a “substantial disadvantage”
On paper, it sounds protective. In practice, Section 20 collapses under the weight of one fatal flaw:
the law never defines what “reasonable” actually means.
And that tiny omission opens the door to endless excuses.
Section 21 - Failing to Make Adjustments Is Discrimination
This part is reassuringly blunt:
If an organisation does not make reasonable adjustments, it is unlawful discrimination.
Hospitals, banks, employers, universities; all are covered.
But here’s the trap: because Section 20 never defines “reasonable,” almost anything can be justified.
A Deaf person can have zero meaningful access while the organisation defends itself by saying, “We acted reasonably.”
And legally, that argument can hold.
Section 29 - Services and Public Functions
This section extends the duty to practically every public-facing service:
hospitals
GPs
banks
shops
councils
transport
universities
private companies providing public services
If a service is available to the public, it must be accessible.
At least, in theory.
But because the Act offers no clear minimum standards; no captioning requirements, no BSL obligations, no digital benchmarks - the definition of “accessible” is left to the organisations themselves.
And unsurprisingly, organisations often define access in ways that are convenient to them, not effective for Deaf people.
Schedule 2 - The Anticipatory Duty
This is the part almost no one knows about yet it is one of the most important protections Deaf people have.
It requires organisations to:
plan for disabled people in advance
anticipate access needs
embed accessibility into their systems before anyone asks
This means:
A hospital should not be “figuring out” how to book an interpreter.
A bank should not require a Deaf customer to request accessible communication.
An employer should already have captioning and interpreter processes prepared.
A university should not scramble for access when a Deaf student enrols.
If a Deaf person has to request access, the organisation has already failed its legal duty.
And yet, in practice, very few organisations understand the anticipatory duty and even fewer follow it.
The Vagueness That Legalises Exclusion
This is where the Equality Act’s promise falls apart. Every key term that should protect Deaf people is written so loosely that it becomes a loophole.
“Reasonable adjustments”
The phrase is everywhere. But the Act never says:
reasonable to whom?
reasonable from whose perspective?
reasonable based on what standard?
So organisations end up interpreting “reasonable” through the lens of cost, convenience, internal policy, staffing levels, or “what we normally do.”
The Deaf person’s experience barely features in the decision-making.
“Substantial disadvantage”
Legally defined as “more than minor or trivial.”
That’s it. That’s the whole definition.
And because it is so vague, organisations can and do argue their way out of their obligations by minimising the impact.
When a law uses terms that soft, outcomes become negotiable.
“Auxiliary aid or service”
This includes things like:
BSL interpreters
captions
communication tools
visual alert systems
But even here, the law dilutes the obligation by adding:
providers must take such steps as it is reasonable to have to take.
And there’s that word again; the escape hatch built directly into the law.
The result?
A law that looks strong, sounds progressive, and signals equality but is written in terms soft enough to bend, dilute, reinterpret, and defend exclusion.
The Equality Act doesn’t fail Deaf people because organisations don’t care. It fails because its language gives them permission to decide what access means and too often, they decide incorrectly.
Who Decides What Is “Reasonable”?
The most dangerous flaw in the Equality Act sits quietly inside one word: “reasonable.”
Because the person facing the barrier is not the one who decides what is reasonable. That decision belongs entirely to the organisation creating the barrier.
And once you realise that, the entire system suddenly makes sense.
“Reasonable” gets interpreted not through the lens of human rights, but through the lens of organisational convenience:
a hospital worried about budgets
a bank protecting its internal systems
a university avoiding termly costs
a business that simply never planned for Deaf customers
The law hands interpretive power to the provider; the very party with an incentive to minimise effort, cost, and responsibility.
And the consequence is predictable.
We hear:
“Providing an interpreter isn’t reasonable here.”
“Captions are too technically complicated.”
“Adjusting our digital system isn’t practical right now.”
“Written English is a suitable alternative.”
“We’ve already been more than reasonable.”
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: under the Equality Act’s softness, these arguments can be defended.
A university once told me, confidently that offering me an inferior workaround was “more than reasonable,” even though the outcome left me without equal access.
Their logic was simple: if the effort felt hard for them, they believed the law was satisfied.
And under the current wording, they weren’t entirely wrong.
This is where the deeper issue comes in:
When organisations get to decide what is reasonable, human rights become negotiable.
The right to understand. The right to participate. The right to communicate. The right to access essential services without discrimination.
These should never hinge on an institution’s budget forecast or IT team priorities.
Yet the Equality Act turns those rights into something conditional, something that depends on:
how busy the organisation is
how much they want to spend
how much they feel like doing
how persuasive a Deaf person is when asking
“Reasonable” becomes:
a shield
a loophole
a justification for inaction
a polite way to refuse equality
It transforms discrimination into an administrative decision. It allows institutions to say “we did what we could” instead of “we did what was required.”
And this is not an accident or a rare misunderstanding. It is the predictable outcome of a law written with soft language and handed to organisations to interpret as they see fit.
The Equality Act appears protective. It sounds progressive. It reads like a human rights document.
But rights written without enforcement or definition aren’t rights; they’re hopes.
And as long as “reasonable” is defined by institutions rather than by the people excluded, Deaf people will continue to have their human rights filtered through someone else’s convenience.
A right that depends on another person’s interpretation isn’t a right. It’s permission and permission can be withdrawn at any time.
Policy Without Accountability: A Law That Exists Without a System
The Equality Act legally requires organisations to make “reasonable adjustments.”
But here is the reality behind that promise:
There is no routine audit system.
There is no dedicated accessibility regulator.
There is no automatic penalty for failing Deaf people.
Nothing checks whether organisations are complying. Nothing monitors their systems. Nothing triggers consequences when they exclude people.
Instead, enforcement is almost entirely reactive. The law only comes into play after something has gone wrong and only if the individual affected has the capacity, knowledge, and resources to challenge it.
That means the system effectively relies on Deaf people to:
notice a breach
understand the Equality Act
navigate inaccessible complaint routes
and pursue legal action
All while dealing with the consequences of the exclusion itself.
In practice, accessibility becomes a choice, not a requirement:
something a business might do if the budget allows
something a hospital might provide if someone complains loudly enough
something a university might consider if it isn’t “too expensive this term”
There is no structural incentive to comply, and no structural consequence for failing to comply.
That is why, for Deaf people, the Equality Act has become symbolic rather than operational:
The law exists. The enforcement system doesn’t.
Equality Built on Assumptions
The Equality Act quietly relies on several assumptions:
that people know their rights
that people can complain
that complaint routes are accessible
that organisations are willing to change
None of these assumptions are true for Deaf people.
To even begin to use the law, a Deaf person is expected to:
write formal complaint letters in complex written English
navigate phone-based systems they cannot use
chase responses for weeks or months
access legal advice from teams who often do not understand Deaf-specific discrimination
If you cannot access the complaints process, you cannot enforce the law.
So in practice, equality exists only for those who have:
the time
the energy
the English literacy
the emotional resilience to fight their way through a long, draining, bureaucratic maze.
Less than 1% of discrimination claims under the Equality Act ever reach a full tribunal. For Deaf people, the real percentage is likely even lower.
This means equality isn’t delivered by the law; it’s delivered only to those who manage to survive the process.
That isn’t justice. It’s attrition.
Data That Speaks the Truth
If the Equality Act were working, we would see it in the outcomes. We don’t.
The numbers are not minor gaps or isolated failures; they are a statistical map of a system that excludes Deaf people as standard practice.
1 in 6 people in the UK are Deaf or hard of hearing (RNID,2024).
70% of Deaf people experience barriers in healthcare because of communication failures (SignHealth,2022).
42% have experienced medical mistakes directly linked to those failures.
63% of Deaf employees have been denied interpreters for meetings or training (RNID, 2023).
0% of major UK banks offer consistent BSL customer support across all services (DeafMetrix audit,2025).
Less than 2% of accessibility-related complaints submitted to the Equality and Human Rights Commission result in enforcement.
These are not small problems. These are structural patterns.
If a blind customer were told:
“Bring your own guide dog; ramps are too expensive,”
there would be immediate national outrage.
But when Deaf people are told:
“Bring a friend to interpret,” or “Just use email instead,”
it is treated as normal, acceptable even polite.
The data does not show a system trying and struggling. It shows a system that has quietly decided it does not need to comply.
Because the law allows it. And the system knows it.
Why Organisations Breach the Law Every Day Without Realising
What’s happening across the UK isn’t a series of small mistakes. It is mass non-compliance disguised as normal behaviour.
Most organisations don’t even realise they are breaking the law — because the Equality Act is vague, poorly understood, and rarely enforced. As a result, practices that are clearly unlawful have become routine.
Here’s how that looks across different sectors:
Healthcare
Common everyday practices:
telephone-only triage
appointments with no interpreter
staff telling Deaf patients to “bring a family member to help”
All of these are legal breaches.
They violate:
Section 20-21 of the Equality Act (failure to make reasonable adjustments)
the NHS Accessible Information Standard, which requires communication support
Yet they happen daily, not because staff are uncaring, but because systems have never been designed with Deaf access in mind.
Banking & Finance
Typical barriers:
voice-only security checks
fraud and debt lines accessible only by phone
branches refusing to arrange interpreters
no accessible way to confirm identity
These practices breach:
Section 29 (services must be accessible)
Schedule 2 (anticipatory duty - banks must plan access in advance)
Banks are legally required to ensure Deaf customers can manage their accounts securely. Most simply haven’t built systems that allow it.
Employment
Common experiences for Deaf employees:
team meetings with no captions
training sessions without interpreters
interviews conducted on Teams with no accessible communication options
These failures amount to breaches of:
Section 20 - employers must provide access unless it is genuinely impossible
Cost is not a valid excuse for employers with substantial resources.
These practices aren’t minor oversights. They prevent Deaf people from performing, progressing, or even being hired.
4️⃣ Education
Examples from universities and colleges:
Deaf students told to “share notes”
lectures with no live captions
interpreter requests refused because it’s “too expensive this term”
These decisions breach the Equality Act, the anticipatory duty, and often institutional policies.
This is not inclusion. It is exclusion presented as practicality.
5️⃣ Digital & AI
Increasingly common barriers:
chatbots that only understand voice commands
video platforms with no captions
security systems requiring phone calls to verify identity
These are modern PCPs - Policies, Criteria, or Practices that place Deaf people at a clear disadvantage.
Even though the law hasn’t been updated to match digital reality, the duty to provide access still applies.
Digital discrimination is still discrimination.
The Real Problem
It isn’t that we lack laws. It’s that we lack:
understanding
accountability
systems
enforcement
consequences
So unlawful practices become normal practices, and exclusion becomes embedded into everyday operations.
Not because people intend harm but because the system allows it, and the law does not require anything stronger.
The Cost Excuse
One of the most damaging parts of the Equality Act is that it allows cost to influence what is considered “reasonable”.
That single clause undermines everything.
Large organisations routinely argue that:
interpreters are “too expensive”
captioning platforms are “not proportionate”
BSL access is “not viable right now”
Even when the cost of an interpreter hour is less than a team’s weekly coffee budget.
Because cost is relative, not capped, corporations can always claim hardship and win.
For a bank with millions in profit, one interpreter is negligible.
For a hospital group, the cost of access is tiny compared to the cost of litigation which almost never happens.
So discrimination becomes affordable, and equality becomes negotiable.
Charities Filling the Vacuum – Without Ever Being the Problem
When the Equality Act is not enforced, a quiet shift happens in the system: the responsibility for access moves away from the organisations legally required to provide it, and ends up falling on people who should never have to carry that burden.
Not because charities or volunteers are doing anything wrong but because they step in when no one else does.
You see it across the country:
Deaf organisations working tirelessly to secure interpreters or support for situations where hospitals, councils, or service providers are already legally responsible.
Volunteers helping Deaf individuals navigate complaint routes that are inaccessible by design.
Deaf employees spending energy advocating internally for captions or interpreters while their workplace simultaneously promotes “diversity” or “inclusion” messaging.
This support is essential. It keeps people safe. It fills immediate gaps.
But unintentionally, it also keeps the deeper structural issues hidden, because the system’s failures don’t become visible until they cause serious harm.
And this creates a dangerous illusion.
It allows organisations to present themselves as engaged, caring, or community-focused, while avoiding a harder truth:
They are being helped to mask where their systems are not compliant.
It becomes easier and often more publicly celebrated for an organisation to:
highlight partnerships
promote awareness campaigns
show solidarity with the community
than to rebuild their services so Deaf people can access them without barriers.
This isn’t about blaming those who step in. It’s about recognising that their support should never be needed in place of legal compliance.
The issue isn’t goodwill. It’s the absence of accountability that forces goodwill to become the safety net for a system that should already work.
The Digital Gap the Equality Act Never Saw Coming
The Equality Act was written for a world that barely exists anymore.
In 2010:
Zoom wasn’t in everyday vocabulary.
AI wasn’t making decisions for businesses.
Online banking wasn’t the default route to your own money.
Telehealth wasn’t replacing GP appointments.
Digital identity systems weren’t verifying people’s lives.
Remote work wasn’t the foundation of modern employment.
The law was built for a physical world, not the digital one where discrimination now lives.
And here is the problem:
The Equality Act never evolved. Technology did.
Today, most essential interactions happen online, yet the Act still contains zero direct reference to digital accessibility.
No mention of video. No mention of online platforms. No mention of captioning standards. No mention of accessible chat or AI systems. No mention of how Deaf people are expected to navigate services that rely entirely on voice.
There are no mandatory requirements for:
captions on video platforms
BSL video contact routes
accessible chatbots or AI assistants
non-voice alternatives for banking security
digital accessibility testing before launch
metrics to track accessible user experience
This means:
A digital platform that works only with speech is still legally acceptable.
A bank that requires phone-based identity verification is still legally acceptable.
A hospital that sends video appointment links with no captions or BSL option is still legally acceptable.
A workplace that runs hybrid meetings without captions is still legally acceptable.
Not because the law intended this. But because the law never anticipated the world we now live in.
We redesigned society. We just didn’t redesign equality with it.
And that is why Deaf people are being excluded at scale, not through individual prejudice, but through architectural decisions baked into digital systems.
This is the part policymakers never understood:
Digital accessibility isn’t a technical feature. It’s communication. It’s safety. It’s rights.
When access moves online and the law stays offline, exclusion becomes invisible and therefore unstoppable.
Discrimination didn’t disappear. It simply upgraded faster than the law.
And unless the Act is redesigned to match the digital realities of 2025, Deaf people will continue to be left out of the systems that run everyday life, not because anyone chooses to exclude us, but because the law made space for systems that never had to include us in the first place.
The DeafMetrix Test: What Equality Should Actually Mean
Most organisations still treat accessibility as a checklist; a feature to add, a box to tick, a problem to solve only when someone points it out.
But equality is not a checklist. It is a design standard.
At DeafMetrix, we use a test that cuts through policies, promises, and polished statements. A test so simple that it exposes, immediately, whether a system is genuinely inclusive or just performing the idea of inclusion.
Three questions. No excuses. No hiding places.
1. Is it effective?
Does it actually work for Deaf people, in real time, end to end?
Not “we tried.” Not “we hope so.” Not “we have an email address.”
Does the system produce equal outcomes?
Can a Deaf person access the service from start to finish without barriers?
Does communication happen in the language they use?
Can they complete the same task as a hearing person without needing workarounds, extra steps, or favours?
If the answer is no, the system is not accessible. It is functionally discriminatory.
2. Is it proactive?
Was access designed in from the start or patched in after something went wrong?
If a Deaf person has to ask for access, the system has already failed.
Real equality is anticipatory built into the infrastructure, not bolted on like a repair.
Does the organisation have Deaf-friendly pathways ready?
Are interpreters, captions, and alternative routes already embedded?
Are digital systems tested for communication access before launch?
If access only appears after a complaint, that’s not inclusion.
That’s damage control.
3. Is it equitable?
Would a non-Deaf person ever be asked to accept this workaround?
This is the question that exposes everything.
Would anyone else tolerate:
“Bring your own interpreter”?
“Use email instead”?
“Call this number you can’t hear”?
“Share notes with classmates”?
“Just guess what’s happening in the meeting”?
If the answer is no then the system is not equitable.
It is exclusion with extra steps.
This is the standard the Equality Act never defined, and the one the UK desperately needs.**
The DeafMetrix Test reframes equality from something organisations intend to something people can measure.
It takes accessibility out of the realm of goodwill and places it where it belongs in the architecture of the system itself.
If a service cannot pass all three questions, it is not accessible.
It is simply operating without us.
The Redesign Britain Actually Needs
The Equality Act doesn’t need another slogan. It doesn’t need another awareness campaign. It doesn’t need another apology wrapped in “we’re learning.”
It needs a redesign from the ground up.
Here is what a modern, effective, Deaf-inclusive equality framework must look like.
Define Accessibility in Law - Not in Guesswork
“Reasonable adjustments” is too vague, too flexible, too easy to reinterpret. We need explicit, measurable, non-negotiable standards written directly into legislation.
That means:
Mandatory BSL access across all essential services
Captioning, transcript, and communication standards for every digital platform and video system
Clear minimum requirements for hybrid work, banking, healthcare, education, transport, safety, and emergency services
If access is not defined in law, it will always be optional. And optional access is not equality.
Deaf-Led Enforcement - Power With the People Who Understand the Problem
No law works without enforcement. And enforcement cannot be left to individuals who are already excluded.
Britain needs a statutory Deaf Accessibility Commission with the legal power to:
run audits
investigate systemic failures
impose fines
publish public compliance league tables
A regulator that doesn’t need permission, complaints, or media pressure to act, only evidence.
Anything less leaves Deaf equality dependent on luck.
Radical Transparency - So No One Can Hide Behind “Good Intentions”
Accessibility should not be guesswork. It should be measurable, visible, and accountable.
Require annual public reporting across:
healthcare
banking and finance
education
government and public sectors
major digital platforms
People should be able to see, clearly who is excluding Deaf people and who is building systems that work.
Sunlight is not a threat. It is a catalyst.
A Complaints System That Deaf People Can Actually Use
Right now, the complaint process is the biggest barrier. You cannot enforce rights through routes you can’t access.
We need one national BSL and text-based portal, where Deaf people can:
submit evidence in BSL or text
receive guidance on which regulator handles what
escalate when organisations ignore or delay
track outcomes without phone calls or dense legal forms
No more inaccessible helplines. No more “complaint closed” with no action. No more bureaucracy acting as a gatekeeper to justice.
Equality as a Condition of Funding - Not a Branding Exercise
If public money is being spent, public access must be guaranteed.
No organisation should receive:
contracts
licences
grants
NHS partnerships
or government funding
unless they can meet basic Deaf access standards.
If you want public money, you uphold public equality.
It’s that simple.
Embed Deaf Leadership - Not As Consultants, But As Architects
No reform is credible if it is designed by people who have never lived the problem.
Deaf leadership must be embedded at every level of:
policy and legislation
digital transformation
accessibility regulation
corporate governance
service design and complaints mechanisms
Access cannot be reverse-engineered. It cannot be approximated. It cannot be guessed by people who have never had to fight for communication.
It must be designed by those who understand exactly where systems fail and what it takes to build them properly.
This is not a wishlist. It is an infrastructure plan. It is what Britain needs if equality is ever going to be real.**
Equality Isn’t a Favour. It’s the Floor.
The Equality Act 2010 was meant to protect us. But for Deaf people, it has protected something else entirely:
the status quo
the comfort of organisations
the convenience of outdated systems
the illusion that “trying” is the same as being accountable
It allows discrimination to hide behind paperwork. It allows access to be denied through politeness. It turns equality into a debate about what’s reasonable for the provider, instead of what is necessary for the person affected.
And every single day, Deaf people are paying the price; financially, medically, emotionally, professionally for a law that never defined equality clearly and never built a system capable of enforcing it.
This is not about sympathy. It is about structural integrity.
Rights are not meant to depend on:
who has the strongest English
who can navigate a complaint system
who has the emotional energy to push
who can afford legal representation
who is willing to beg for access
When equality depends on stamina, money, or literacy, it is not equality.
It is attrition.
And Deaf people are done being exhausted. We are done being patient. We are done being “reasonable.”
Because equality was never meant to be negotiated. It was meant to be non-negotiable.
And Britain will not become equal until the law reflects that truth.
