Accessible communication resources for health professionals

Best practice guides

Accessible documents
The NSW Public Service Commission has put together information for creating accessible word documents, PDFs, presentations, and emails.
Accessibility and Inclusivity Toolkit
Digital NSW provides the building blocks for creating user-centred digital services, as well as policy, tools, and guidance to enhance accessibility.
All of Us: A guide to engaging consumers, carers and communities across NSW Health
All of Us is a guide to respectful, consumer, carer, and community engagement across NSW Health. The website provides users with information about the six ways of working and tools for facilitators, helpers and hosts.
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care: Health literacy
Australian Government publications addressing health literacy and effective communication.
Australian Government Style Manual
Sets the standard for Australian Government writing and editing. It includes an entire section on producing accessible and inclusive content. Other useful topics relating to accessible communications, including Easy Read and plain language, are covered throughout the manual.
Better Health: Suggestions for communicating with a person with dementia
A Victorian Government resource on ways of effectively communicating with a person with dementia.
Dementia Support Australia
Resources including fact sheets, brochures, best practice guides for health professionals and carers of dementia patients.
Digital Service Standard
The Australian Government’s best-practice principles for designing and delivering government services. Accessibility requirements are specifically addressed in Criterion 9: Make it Accessible. Criterion 6 and Criterion 7 also cross with accessibility in requiring responsive and consistent interfaces and common platforms.
National Health Survey: Health literacy
Data on health literacy by population characteristics including age and sex, by geography, health risk factors and status based on results from the 2018 Australian Bureau of Statistics’ national health survey on health literacy.
Ungeneva: Disability Inclusive Language Guidelines
A language guideline developed by the United Nations Office aimed at removing barriers and promoting respectful communication with and for people with disability.

Communicating with Aboriginal people and communities

Aboriginal Cultural Activities Policy
Protocols for recognising the history, culture, and experience of Aboriginal peoples at NSW Health events and events hosted or sponsored by NSW Health.
Co-design toolkit: Working together with Aboriginal communities
Use the 8 Ways Aboriginal pedagogy to apply Aboriginal perspectives.
Communicating effectively with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
Queensland Health developed this general guide for communicating effectively with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Communicating Positively: A Guide to Appropriate Aboriginal Terminology
This guide provides NSW Health staff, and other stakeholders, with information and guidance on appropriate word usage when working with Aboriginal peoples and communities, and when developing policy and programs.
Effective and safe communication with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consumers
The National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) with the support of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Standing Committee (NATSIHSC) developed this guide to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consumers can be fully informed about their health.

Communicating with culturally and linguistically diverse people and communities

Developing health resources for people from refugee backgrounds
This resource guides NSW Health services and programs in the planning, development, production, post-production, and distribution phases of multilingual health information for refugee, refugee-like and asylum seeker communities.
Multicultural Communications Playbook
This playbook is for communications professionals and covers key aspects of multicultural marketing communications campaigns.
NSW Government Language Services Guidelines
Produced by Multicultural NSW, these guidelines intend to provide NSW government organisations with guidance on how and when language services should be used in the provision of services.
Position Statement: Use of machine translation to communicate with culturally and linguistically diverse communities
The NSW Health Multicultural Health Communication Service strives to ensure the most accurate and reliable translations are available for consumers, and strongly recommends only accredited translators are used when delivering information for culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

Communicating with people with disability

Easy Read
Easy Read is a way of presenting written text in an accessible, easy-to-understand format. For resources developed in Easy Read by NSW Health, refer to Easy Read resources for health consumers.
Communication Access and Inclusion Terminology Report
Speech Pathology Australia released a report aimed at facilitating a shared understanding in the preferred term/s used to refer to people with communication disability.
Communication Hub: Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
An online fact sheet about understanding communication using something other than speech.
Communication tips for people spending time with people with intellectual disability
A brochure providing tips on how to communicate with people who have an intellectual disability, including accessible written communications.
Dementia Support Australia
Resources including fact sheets, brochures, best practice guides for health professionals and carers of dementia patients.
Intellectual disability: Information for health professionals
A fact sheet by the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation to help health professionals understand intellectual disability and how it affects a person's health.
Intellectual Disability Actions for Clinicians Fact Sheet
Make reasonable adjustments for a person's intellectual disability to create an inclusive environment and facilitate meeting the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards.
Overcoming communication barriers: Working with patients with intellectual disabilities
A fact sheet written by the Royal Australian College of General Practice on communicating with patients who have an intellectual disability.
Say less show more
Designed by the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation Intellectual Disability Network, this website provides a series of simple visuals, e-learning packages and support materials that show children and adults what happens during a physical examination or blood test.

Testing your communications

Communication accessibility checklist
Use this checklist to rate the accessibility of the communications you create and to learn ways to improve your written, visual, and digital communications.
Event accessibility checklist
When it comes to organising an event, there are a few aspects to consider to ensure the event can be enjoyed by everybody. This checklist will provide you with considerations to help accommodate people with disability.
Hemingway App
An app that helps make your writing bold and clear by highlighting lengthy, complex sentences and common errors.
Microsoft Accessibility Checker
Run the Accessibility Checker built into Microsoft office applications to make your content easier for people with disabilities to read and edit.
The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease Test
When Microsoft Word finishes checking spelling and grammar and corrects errors, you can choose to display information about the reading level of the document.
The Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) and User’s Guide
A seven-step guide to using the PEMAT to assess printed patient education material.
The Sydney Health Literacy Lab (SHeLL) Editor tool
The SheLL Editor helps make health information easy to understand and follows the health literacy guidance checklist.
WebAIM
A free tool which checks the contrast accessibility of your foreground text and background colour.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
WCAG is a site that focuses on standards, developments, and issues in web page development as they relate to accessibility for people with a disability.

Training and development

Accessible communication formats
A UK Government site on how to develop and provide accessible communications.
Accessibility NSW learning modules – Digital NSW
A range of free and paid courses and learning modules on digital accessibility.
Council for Intellectual Disability
Online Easy Read training courses facilitated by the Council for Intellectual Disability. These courses will help health professionals develop health communication materials in Easy Read to enable consumers to make informed decisions about their health.
Digital Accessibility for the Modern Workplace
A 50-minute course on LinkedIn Learning by Hector Minto, an accessibility evangelist at Microsoft, who shares how to use accessibility solutions, outlines technology solutions for each type of disability and provides best practices for developing more inclusive experiences in meetings, emails, presentations, and social media posts.
Intellectual disability training videos
This video series can help you understand the care needs of a person with intellectual disability.
My Health Learning (for NSW Health staff)

Digital Accessibility (course code: 338035719)
This module is for beginners and shows how to create accessible and inclusive content for mobile apps and the web.
Easy guide to writing (course code: 40165467)
This module will provide you with simple, easy to use guidelines for writing in plain language using correct punctuation.
Health Literacy and Teach-back (course code: 241744958)
A podcast series that emphasises the importance of health literacy in providing health care that is safe and supports improved patient outcomes.
Just Include Me - Inclusive Health Care (course code: 507546397)
This series of nine training modules have been developed by the Council for Intellectual Disability to guide the development of inclusive and accessible health communication materials.
Lets Talk Disability (course code: 67951622)
Meet the diverse needs of people with disability who use NSW Health services.
Plain Language Fundamentals (course code: 492482324)
This half day course is a condensed version of the Writing Well at Work module but does not include content on writing briefs. It is a refresher on plain language principles.
Removing the barriers: Inclusion of people with disability (Learning pathway)
Five modules to enhance your knowledge about the diversity and different perspectives of disability, and how to effectively remove barriers to promote inclusion within the workplace.
Writing Well at Work (course code: 492481952)
This one-day English writing course supports you to develop skills that help you to write a range of documents, including briefs, in an effective and efficient way.

National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS): Supporting effective communication
This e-learning module demonstrates – from the perspective of NDIS participants – what effective communication looks like and how it supports choice and control.
National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS): Worker Orientation Module ‘Quality, Safety and You’
An interactive online course that explains the obligations of workers under the NDIS Code of Conduct – from the perspective of NDIS participants. It was developed in consultation with the sector, including NDIS providers and people with a disability.
Teach back
An online learning module developed to provide healthcare workers with the information and skills to use the teach-back method.

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Accessible communication resources for health professionals