Automatic Sign Language Translation for Healthcare Websites

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There are approximately 87,000 people who use British Sign Language (BSL) daily in the UK. Only 1% of websites are considered accessible to these people (RNID, 2018). Deaf people often have poor literacy rates and struggle to understand written English. The traditional solution is to use a BSL Interpreter to enable Deaf people to understand important information. However, there are only 1000 interpreters in the UK; meaning a lengthy wait for interpretation of about two days on average. The result is a communication barrier between public services and Deaf people that need access to information, with a particular struggle with healthcare. Research has shown that Deaf people's health is already much poorer than hearing people's, with accessibility to information a major factor in this (SignHealth, 2020). Accessibility is even lower online, with almost no examples of signed content on healthcare websites. The main reason is the cost of hiring interpreters to sign all the content, with a £180 an hour translation cost infeasible. In this project, Signapse will scope the feasibility of building automatic sign language translation technology for healthcare websites. Backed by 20 years of computational research, Signapse's mission is to bring AI and sign language together. Signapse was founded after being approached by major organisations that wanted a real-time and cheaper alternative to BSL interpreters. We have developed world-leading innovative technology that is well received by the Deaf community. Our next development phase is to investigate innovative translation methodologies for constrained domains such as healthcare. Healthcare websites are an ideal place to develop our translation technology, as it is both a useful application but also a constrained domain which requires less data to tackle. Within the proposed project, we shall conduct a feasibility study to assess the requirements of the technology, understand the task and enable a commercialisation plan for the market. Due to the large degree of innovation involved with this technology, we believe it is important to first scope the market before we catalyse further innovation on our path to commercial success. If this project is successful, it will enable more accessibility for Deaf people online, meaning they can better understand healthcare content and access self help materials online, particularly pertaining to mental health and wellbeing. This will increase their ability to perform self-care, without relying on human interpretation. We believe this project will significantly improve the health of all BSL users.