The Royal National Institute for Deaf People, which prefers to be referred to as RNID, seeks to represent all deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK.

RNID's headquarters are in Islington, in Central London (19-23 Featherstone Street, LONDON EC1Y 8SL). Its President is Lord Ashley of Stoke. Its Chief Executive is John Low . The chairman of its trustees is James Strachan . Its Patron is the Duke of Edinburgh.

In the financial year 2003/2004 it had an net income of £38.5 million and expenditure of £41.5 million. RNID is the largest charity representing deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK and even in Europe.

Activities

RNID represents deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK by:

• campaigning and lobbying to change laws and government policies;

• providing information and raising awareness of deafness, hearing loss and tinnitus;

• operating care services for deaf and hard of hearing people with additional needs;

• providing training courses and consultancy on deafness and disability;

• operating communication services, including sign language interpreters;

• training interpreters, lipspeakers and speech-to-text operators;

• seeking change in education for deaf children and young people;

• providing employment programmes to help deaf people into work;

• operating RNID Typetalk, funded by BT, the national telephone relay service for deaf and hard of hearing people;

• making equipment and products for deaf and hard of hearing people available;

• conducting social, medical and technical research.

History

RNID was founded as the National Bureau for Promoting the General Welfare of the Deaf in 1911 by Leo Bonn , a deaf merchant banker. It was reorganised as the National Institute for the Deaf in 1924. Alongside its role in influencing public policy in favour of people with a hearing impairment 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 (NHS) 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 the Duke of Edinburgh became the Patron of the Institute; and in 1961 the Queen of the United Kingdom 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 to this day.

In 1992 the Institute changed its name to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People but kept the acronym RNID.

In more recent years, RNID has achieved a very high profile for its work together with the UK government on modernisation of the UK's audiology services available via the UK's national health service (NHS), which has seen the introduction of superior digital hearing aids free of charge to the end users. RNID Health Director Philippa Palmer has been responsible for this programme.

RNID has also emerged as a major player in technology research and development, in particular through its work in the area of Information and Communication Technology. These activities are headed up by Guido Gybels, their Director of New Technologies. His group won a Computing Award for Excellence for their work on a mobile textphone. More recently, he has been working on a Video Relay service for sign language users. He also wrote a paper on web accessibility for deaf and hard of hearing people.

External Link

• RNID Website
• RNID New Technology Website