SignVideo Extends Opening Hours to Increase Accessibility For The UK’s Deaf British Sign Language Users

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From the 22nd October 2016, we are launching new, extended opening hours for our Video Relay Service (VRS) which will now allow our BSL-using customers to contact hearing people on weekday evenings and Saturday mornings. The decision comes after listening to and acting upon feedback from our customers, who told us that they need longer accessible hours and more opportunity to be in contact with hearing friends, family and colleagues. This will initially be a trial to assess demand and if demand is there, will be rolled out permanently and even potentially extended further.

Our additional hours of operation will be from 6pm to 8pm in the evenings on Mondays to Fridays and we will also now be open on Saturday mornings from 8am until 1pm.

Jeff McWhinney, Chairman and Founder of SignVideo explains,

“We want to give the best VRS service to our customers and as much access as possible – this is why we are extending our opening hours. This is great news for our customers as it means they can now make calls using SignVideo later into the evening and on a weekend when they couldn’t before. This extends access to hearing friends, family or colleagues for deaf BSL users.”

These extended opening hours will be really helpful for customers who use SignVideo for work – shift workers or those who work later evening hours can now make calls until 8pm. Self employed people can make more business calls in the evenings, after normal working hours and for our customers who use SignVideo with hearing friends and family, they can now call them on a Saturday.

The additional SignVideo service hours will come as part of the current SignVideo package and will not be charged as extra.

SignVideo provides British Sign Language (BSL) video interpreting services to enable communication between the community of over 150,000 deaf BSL users in the UK and hearing people. The service allows users to make and receive BSL interpreted video calls so that they can effectively and effortlessly communicate with each other. This happens through a professional video interpreter who relays the call between BSL and English and the service is available instantly on tablets, smartphones, computers and laptops via apps and software.

Born in 2004, SignVideo is led by Jeff McWhinney, a well-known deaf entrepreneur who fights tirelessly for equality of the deaf and hearing community. Today, SignVideo, a predominantly deaf-led organisation, provides their service to the government, NHS, councils, UK banks, telecommunications providers, helplines and many other types of organisations.

Read more and connect with us on social media at www.signvideo.co.uk.