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| Established | 1911 |
|---|---|
| Type | NGO |
| Legal status | Charity |
| Headquarters | Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England |
Region served | United Kingdom |
| Harriet Oppenheimer | |
| Website | rnid |
The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), known as Action on Hearing Loss from 2011 to 2020, is a charitable organisation working on behalf of the UK's 9 million people who are deaf or have hearing loss.
The Royal National Institute for Deaf People was founded as the National Bureau for Promoting the General Welfare of the Deaf in 1911 by Leo Bonn (Leo Bernard William Bonn) a deaf merchant banker, and philanthropist, in the ballroom of his home, at Bonn House, 22 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair, on 9 June 1911. The house is marked by a memorial plaque unveiled by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Patron to the RNID, on 9 June 1998. [1] [2]
The Bureau was reorganised as the National Institute for the Deaf in 1924. Alongside its role in influencing public policy in favour of people who are hard of hearing in the UK, it also developed a role as a provider of care to deaf and hard of hearing people with additional needs during the late 1920s and early 1930s.
During the 1940s, with the introduction of the National Health Service to the UK, it successfully campaigned for the provision of free hearing aids through the new welfare state system. The 1950s and 1960s saw its increasing influence marked by Royal recognition: in 1958, Prince Philip became the Patron of the institute; and in 1961 Elizabeth II approved the addition of the "Royal" prefix, creating the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID).
The Institute expanded into medical and technological research during the 1960s and 1970s, being a key player in the development of NHS provided behind-the-ear hearing aids. During the 1980s it developed the Telephone Exchange for the Deaf, a pioneering relay service allowing telephone users and deaf "textphone" users to communicate with each other using a third-party operator to relay voice and text communication. This became the service known as Typetalk in 1991, funded by BT but operated on their behalf by RNID until 7 December 2009 when the RNID stepped down from the service. It is now solely owned, run and managed by BT alone. In March 2009 the name of the Typetalk service was changed to Text Relay. [3]
In 1992 the Institute changed its name to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People but kept the initials RNID.
June 2011 saw celebrations of 100 years of the RNID and a new trading name. "Action on Hearing Loss" was chosen to describe the breadth of help and support that RNID provided for people with all types of hearing loss — from people who were profoundly deaf, to people who were losing their hearing. [4] While trading under the new name, it kept the legal name, Royal National Institute for Deaf People.
RNID announced in 2020 that it was selling its 23 care homes and its supported living, community and domiciliary care services which it had been providing since 1929. The charity's 560 clients were told their homes and services were to be sold and the 600 staff would be transferred to a new owner. This was despite the organisation's chief executive saying in 2018 he had no plans to carry out the kind of mass sale of services that he oversaw in his previous position as chief executive of the disability charity Scope. [5]
Its 2017/2018 annual accounts showed the charity had an income of £40.1m but spent £42.7m. This was the fifth time in six years that the charity's expenditure had exceeded its income. RNID's auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers said that "material uncertainty" over fundraising income and other conditions cast doubt on the charity's ability to "continue as a going concern". [6]
A financial recovery plan was delivered in the 2019/20 financial year. As a result, RNID's auditors expressed no further concerns about the charity's going concern status in the accounts signed in November 2019. Like all charities, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in new financial pressures for RNID. However, as a result of the financial recovery plan and ongoing prudent financial management, RNID is confident in its ongoing financial sustainability.
In 2020, partly as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the charity rebranded and reverted to the RNID name, stating a new purpose: "Together, we will make life fully inclusive for deaf people and those with hearing loss or tinnitus."
The charity's care and support services in England and Wales were acquired by Achieve Together, a provider of specialist support for people with learning disabilities, autism and associated complex needs in 2021. [7]
The charity partnered with Sela and Newcastle United to create a jersey which would transform stadium noise into real-time touch sensations. Sela co-created a "haptic" jersey with the charity for deaf supporters to wear and donated its front-of-shirt sponsorship to the charity for a match against Tottenham Hotspur on 13 April 2024 as part of the charity's "Unsilence the Crowd" campaign. [8]
The RNID's collections were part of the Ear Institute Library prior to its closure in 2020. [9] Today the archive and rare books library is held in University College London's Special Collections. [9] [10]
RNID activities include:
RNID lobbies and works with the UK government on modernisation of the UK's audiology services. This included the switchover from analogue to digital hearing aids provided under the NHS.
RNID has also undertakes product development. The RNID Product Development team won an innovation award for their work on a new genre of telephon, the ScreenPhone, though this has now been discontinued.
RNID has developed an online free, confidential online hearing check, [11] which can identify potential hearing problems. The five-minute check assesses a person's ability to hear someone speaking when there is background noise.
The charity's celebrity ambassadors include Samantha Baines. [12] Scarlette Douglas is a former ambassador. [13]
Hearing loss is a partial or total inability to hear. Hearing loss may be present at birth or acquired at any time afterwards. Hearing loss may occur in one or both ears. In children, hearing problems can affect the ability to acquire spoken language, and in adults it can create difficulties with social interaction and at work. Hearing loss can be temporary or permanent. Hearing loss related to age usually affects both ears and is due to cochlear hair cell loss. In some people, particularly older people, hearing loss can result in loneliness.
RNIB is a registered charity in the United Kingdom that offers practical and emotional support to blind and partially sighted people, their families and carers. It is regarded as a leader in the field in supporting people in the UK who have vision loss. RNIB also seeks to increase awareness of the day-to-day experiences of people who are blind or partially sighted and campaigns for UK society to become more accessible to them.
Deaf culture is the set of social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values, and shared institutions of communities that are influenced by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label, especially within the culture, the word deaf is often written with a capital D and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. When used as a label for the audiological condition, it is written with a lower case d. Carl G. Croneberg was among the first to discuss analogies between Deaf and hearing cultures in his appendices C and D of the 1965 Dictionary of American Sign Language.
Action Medical Research, previously The National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases, is a major British medical research charity, founded in 1952, that funds research to prevent and treat disease and disability in babies and children.
Doug Alker is the former chair of the British Deaf Association and the Royal National Institute for the Deaf. His self-published 2000 book, Really Not Interested in the Deaf?, is a criticism of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) and the story of his departure from the group.
Electronic notetaking (ENT), also known as computer-assisted notetaking (CAN), is a system that provides virtually simultaneous access to spoken information to people who are deaf and hard of hearing, facilitating equal participation with their hearing colleagues, coworkers, and classmates. This method is most often used in educational or training sessions, but it is also used at health care appointments, meetings, or interviews.
Sound Seekers was a British charity which works to improve the lives of deaf children and children with ear diseases in the developing countries of the Commonwealth of Nations. It provided specialist equipment, training and support to some of the poorest countries of the world, where people with the 'hidden disability' of deafness may otherwise not receive the help they need. In 2020, Sound Seekers merged with DeafKidz International, with the combined charity using the DeafKidz International name.
Christian Blind Mission (CBM) is an international Christian development organization, committed to improving the quality of life of persons with disabilities in the poorest communities of the world. It is considered one of the world's oldest and largest organizations working in this field.
Don't Lose the Music is a national campaign launched by the RNID, the charity representing the 9 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK.
The Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital was a health facility on Gray's Inn Road in London. It closed in October 2019 when services transferred to the new Royal National ENT and Eastman Dental Hospitals on Huntley Street, London, WC1E 6DG. The Huntley Street hospital continues to provide specialist ENT, sleeps and allergy services and is part of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Deaf education is the education of students with any degree of hearing loss or deafness. This may involve, but does not always, individually-planned, systematically-monitored teaching methods, adaptive materials, accessible settings, and other interventions designed to help students achieve a higher level of self-sufficiency and success in the school and community than they would achieve with a typical classroom education. There are different language modalities used in educational setting where students get varied communication methods. A number of countries focus on training teachers to teach deaf students with a variety of approaches and have organizations to aid deaf students.
The UCL Ear Institute is an academic department of the Faculty of Brain Sciences of University College London (UCL) located in Gray's Inn Road in the Bloomsbury district of Central London, England, previously next to the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, the UK's largest ear, nose and throat hospital until it closed in 2019.
Sir John Menzies Low, CBE, CEng, FRSA is an international civil society leader, with a commercial background in science, technology and engineering. From 2007 to 2020, he was group chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF). He was previously the chief executive of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID). Since 2022, John has been Chair of JTL, the leading training provider for the Building Services Engineering sector.
The Royal Association for Deaf people (RAD) is a British charitable organisation whose mission is to promote the welfare and interests of Deaf people. It is a Deaf-led organisation.
Hearing LinkServices is part of Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, a UK-wide charitable organisation for adults with hearing loss, their family and friends. The head office is in Saunderton, Buckinghamshire. Its Royal Patron is The Princess Royal.
World Hearing Day is a campaign held each year by Office of Prevention of Blindness and Deafness of the World Health Organization (WHO). Activities take place across the globe and an event is hosted at the World Health Organization on March 3. The campaign's objectives are to share information and promote actions towards the prevention of hearing loss and improved hearing care. Any individual or organization can participate in various ways, by sharing campaign materials and organizing outreach actions. Examples are provided in the World Hearing Day annual activities reports. For participation to be recognized, one needs to register and report on their activity.
Craig Andrew Crowley is the 8th President of the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf, served between 2009 and 2013.
Winifred Letitia Tumim, Lady Tumim was an English charity administrator and reform campaigner. As chairperson of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) from 1985 to 1992, she led a reform of its management to create clear duties for all the staff. Tumim worked with the Charity Commission for England and Wales and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) to research attitude and performance in the charity world's wider managerial sector. She was chairperson of the NCVO between 1996 and 2001, writing a report advocating for the reform of charity law, which led the Blair ministry to pass the Charities Act 2006. After Tumim's death. the NCVO created an award in her name to reward an improvement in charity governance.
Deafblind UK is a national charity in the United Kingdom supporting people with sight and hearing loss to live the lives they want. Founded in 1928, Deafblind UK has its headquarters in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. The charity help people to live with deafblindness by making connections, and building their confidence and independence through a range of services and campaigns. Run by staff and volunteers, the current CEO is Steve Conway, who has been in position since 2018. The current chairman in Robert Nolan.
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