Get support with sight or hearing loss

Our sight and hearing team provides specialist advice, equipment and rehabilitation for adults with sight or hearing loss.

Local organisations that can help

We work closely with local organisations who provide information and advice for sight and hearing loss, including:

• Surbiton Deaf Social Club
• Remark! deaf community
• Kingston Association for the Blind (KAB)
• more services for people with a physical disability on Connected Kingston

Get specialist support from the sight and hearing service

Our sight and hearing service provides advice and support for adults who:

• have sight or hearing loss
• live in Kingston
• are over 18

We provide services and support to help you maintain or regain your independence.

If something has changed with your sight or hearing

If you think something might have changed with your sight or hearing, you should contact your GP. We can’t diagnose conditions or give medical treatment.

What we can provide

We can give advice over the phone, or visit you at home to talk to you and your family or carer about how you're affected in your everyday life.

We’ll assess what you can do and what you find difficult to work out the best support to help you. We can offer advice, equipment, or rehabilitation services.

Advice

We can provide advice about your condition, including:

• travel options that might help you, like a Freedom Pass, Taxi card or Blue Badge
• information about local and national organisations for people with sight or hearing loss
• the benefits of registering as sight impaired

Equipment

We can give you advice about, and might be able to provide, equipment like:

• talking clocks, task lighting and kitchen gadgets
• amplified phones and doorbells
• alternatives to print books like library audiobook services
• pager alerting systems
• TV loops to hear the television
• advice on accessible technology and help to use existing tools on smartphones and computers

We’ll show you how to use new equipment to make sure you’re comfortable with how it works. There is no cost for most equipment.

Rehabilitation

Our team members can give training and advice on activities like:

• safe kitchen skills, like different ways of making a hot drink
• getting out and about safely and teaching you to use the appropriate white cane

Contact the sight and hearing service

Call the contact centre and ask to speak to the sight and hearing service, and a member of the team will contact you.

Phone

020 8547 5000