GPs and trusts to overhaul communications systems after blind patient sent shielding letters she couldn’t read

GPs and hospitals will have to make sure that patients who are blind or otherwise unable to access communications in the usual way are clearly identified, after the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for England, faced by a High Court challenge, agreed to overhaul the system.

The department agreed to a court order obliging it to make the changes within four months just before the court case, brought by Sarah Leadbetter, who is registered blind and categorised as clinically extremely vulnerable, was about to be heard.

Leadbetter, 45, whose case was backed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, was on the shielded patients …