Accessible information and communication tools

We want to help everyone know what to do in an emergency, and how we can help you. We also want to make using our services easier for you.

Working with our Patient Panel Learning Disabilities sub-group and other partners, we have created some booklets and videos to help people with additional communications needs.

Communication booklet

This booklet has photos and questions we may ask when trying to help you. The booklet aims to help those who struggle to communicate by voice and those who may prefer visual communication, as well as helping with preparing for a journey to hospital.

It includes:

• Photos of the equipment we may use to treat you
• Questions relating to the photos, some with yes and no tabs on the side that you can tap to help you communicate non-verbally while being treated by ambulance staff
• Drawings of symptoms and medical conditions
• An illustrated pain scale including emojis and colours
• A finger alphabet.

The communication booklet is on all our vehicles and with our Community First Responders. It is also on the computers the ambulance crews use.

The communication booklet was co-produced with The Yume Project in Newbury

My Ambulance Journey – illustrated guide

This story is written in the first person and has drawings showing a patient being treated by the ambulance service and being taken to hospital. The pages include icons to show which senses might be affected by what is happening in the drawing.

Easy Read documents

We have created some easy read documents to tell you about our services, and how you can contact us. Easy read documents have pictures next to text, to help people understand what the words are telling them.

Our Easy Read documents have been co-produced with our Patient Panel Learning Disability Group. 

• Easy read – when should I call 999
• Easy read – 999 response times
• Easy read – what to expect when going to hospital
• Easy read – I’m going to hospital in Hampshire

You can find other health related easy read documents on the All About Health website created by Oxfordshire Family Support Network.

Message in a Bottle Autistic Form

We’re very pleased to be piloting an addition to the Lions Message in a Bottle scheme – which will help autistic people’s communications with healthcare professionals.

Emergency situations often cause more stress and anxiety. For autistic people this can make it harder to cope with the situation and to share and process information when speaking with emergency services.

The new sheet will help our crews understand individual communications preferences and adapt how they support autistic people.

360 interactive view inside an ambulance

This video allows you to interactively move around inside one of our ambulances.

The video may take a while to load on slower internet connections.

You can move around the ambulance by using your mouse. You need to click and drag to move around the ambulance. Clicking on the blue circle icons will show you a video of the equipment and has audio describing what is happening.

We recognise that this video may not be accessible to everyone, depending on the technology people have and their communications needs. We have tried to make it as accessible as possible. We are working on a more accessible option.

Information about accessing 999 and 111 services through text messaging, British Sign Language, and translation services is available on the Help accessing our services page.