About Us

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The SOS Communication Kit was developed by a team of clinicians at Guys Hospital, in response to a hearing impaired patient report they were unable to communicate with staff after their operation. 

The Kit was developed and trialled  within the Theatre environment by our team of medical students, nursing staff, surgeons, anaesthetists and perioperative staff.

The SOS Project Team is a wider group, including the collaborative and passionate clinicians at the St Thomas Hospital Hearing Implant Centre, alongside clinicians from Guys Hospital, both based in London, United Kingdom.

The SOS Team includes a diverse group of specialist clinicians with an interest in patient communication and includes audiologists, speech therapists, psychologists, Teachers of the Deaf, nurses, surgeons, medical students, and anaesthetists and peri-operative care clinicians.

The St Thomas Hearing Implant Centre

The speech and hearing specialists at St Thomas Hospital Hearing Implant Centre are experienced clinicians and prolific researchers.

We aim to roll-out the SOS Communication Kit within the UK across craft groups. To monitor how the Kit is being used, and by whom, we hope in future to collate and centralise usage data to monitor usage patterns, user type, clinical context, and patient and staff outcomes, This will also enable us to monitor the efficacy of our campaigns to increase 'SOS Awareness'   around the world. 

The SOS Communication Kit Mission

We believe all patients deserve a voice in hospital, all the time. 

We also believe clinicians deserve ready access to good materials to communicate with their patients. 

The ideal communication solution must be universally accessible, free, simple to construct, single-use and environmentally sustainable. 

Most importantly, it must meet the communication needs of this patient, in this setting, at this time.

The SOS Communication Kit

Flash cards for communicating are not new - and yet those of us who work in hospitals know that many, many patients remain ‘without a voice’ in hospital, often during their most vulnerable moments. 

Although a variety of communication tools exist around the world, every day in every healthcare setting, clinicians struggle with situations where an interpreter or family member is not available - particularly in situations where patients have limited literacy, vision or grip strength and 'writing it down' is not an option. 

Patients are left unable to communicate effectively, and clinicians are left making 'best guesses' at what their patients need. 

The SOS Communication Kit is simple. It is a 6-page document. With a pair of scissors and a staple, it converts into a PointSheet for staff and a 16-page FlipBook of flash cards for patients. 

Thanks to the talent and generosity of volunteer doctors at MMAMTB, the SOS Communication Kit is being translated into 37 languages and illustrated for non-English speaking patients, and those without literacy.

SOS Staff PointSheet

Your operation is over

You are in recovery

Are you too hot or too cold?

Do you feel dizzy?

Are you in pain?

Would you like to lie down?

Are you thirsty?

Would you like to sit up?

Do you need to go to the toilet?

Are you comfortable?

Do you feel sick?

Shall I call your family?

Do you want your hearing aid?

Do you want pen and paper?

SOS Patient FlipBook

Use these cards to talk to us

I am in pain (1-10)

I am too cold

I am in pain

I am thirsty

I need the toilet

How did my operation go?

I feel dizzy

I feel sick

I am itchy

Please call my family

I want to lie down

I am too hot

I want to sit up

I want to write

Please get my hearing aid

The Speech or Sound Project

The Speech or Sound Project consists of the Kit's development, website accessibility, an accompanying ‘viral' marketing campaign driven by local healthcare workers to raise use and awareness, and - in future - a web-based platform for data collation and  research. 

The project is non-profit, voluntary undertaking of the multi-disciplinary team at St Thomas Hearing Implant Centre, Guys Hospital, in collaboration with Australian/New Zealand medical volunteers of MMAMTB.

Live links to download the illustrated SOS Communication Kit in a variety of language options are coming very soon.

Why should you help? 

Because you care.

And because you can. 

For the SOS Communication Kit to do its job, it must be available in any language and suit any level of literacy. Most importantly, it needs to known about and used routinely by all clinicians encountering affected patients.   

To achieve that, we need help - lots of help. To donate your time or expertise or to become an  local ambassador for the SOS Communication Kit or Speech and Sound Research Program in your hospital or community group, please contact program co-ordinator Dr Kristy Fraser-Kirk on kristyfraserkirk@me.com.

Thank you in advance,

Dr Kristy Fraser-Kirk, FRACS

Speech or Sound Co-ordinator

- Senior Clinical Fellow in Auditory Implant and Advanced Otology

St Thomas Hearing Implant Centre

Guys & St Thomas Hospital

London (2018)

We believe all patients deserve a voice in hospital... All the time.

The GSTT SOS Communication Kit Project aims to combine simplicity, technology and people-power to create a free, universally accessible and ‘front-of-mind’ communication tool for patients with impaired communication.

We want the SOS Communication Kit to be available to any healthcare worker, for any patient, in any healthcare setting - anywhere in the world.

Where can the SOS Communication Kit be used? 

The scope for SOS Communication Kit use is endless, but include post-operatively following hearing surgery, tracheostomy, glossectomy, oral and maxillo/mandibular surgery, laryngectomy and voice surgery. The Kit will also be useful in the day-to-day clinical care in the fields of general and geriatric medicine, rehabilitation, neurology and palliative care. Clinical care of non-English speaking and low-literacy patients is also a key area of need.

Research and Development

Future developments include a back-end web capability to facilitate voluntary user contact data, such that our Research team may reach out to users and their families following recovery, and populate our research database of usage patterns, user demographics and patient outcomes. By tailoring survey questions to specific craft groups and clinical environments, partnered clinicians in varied fields (for example speech therapy, perioperative care or Head and Neck oncology) will be provided the opportunity to assess their patients' experiences, and prospectively collate data on specific patient outcomes. 

We hope to support communication researchers in accessing, tailoring, presenting and publishing SOS Kit data - which will facilitate our primary goal of raising awareness of the Kit at conferences, within journals, and across professional groups. 

With every conference presentation and journal article produced, we hope that data collated by the SOS Communication Kit will build evidence to quantify the problem of communication barriers in hospital, allow us to refine and expand the Kit over time, and act as a continual driver of awareness and uptake by cross-pollenating the SOS Communication Kit message across sectors, regions and professional group boundaries.

Can you help spread the word?

We believe the SOS Kit is one of the few instances in healthcare where 'going viral' could be a good thing. 

But for universal access to become a reality, we need a 'league of local champions' promoting the Kit and raising awareness at a local level. 

The SOS Project team plan to produce a series of  Powerpoint demonstrations to make available to healthcare workers, carers and patient advocates in hospital, caring and community environments. 

We hope to encourage the use of Kit usage data by clinical researchers across fields, so we might better understand the communication challenges of different patient groups, and better meet their needs in the future.