A Weston primary school teaching assistant is helping hospital staff to communicate through sign language to each other while they are wearing personal protective equipment (PPE).

Joy Grimsby of Castle Batch Primary School Academy is helping nurses at the NHS Nightingale Hospital Bristol, and has also created a Makaton sign language poster, which will be next to every patients’ bed.

Nursing staff found they could not communicate when wearing PPE so needed a way to speak to each other through sign language.

Makaton is accessible to all and is designed to support spoken language and the signs and symbols are used with speech in spoken word order.

She said: “I’m buzzing thinking of all these amazing people who will be using my training video to be able to communicate when working so hard at the hospital.”

To watch Joy’s video, log on to www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWk5zGPc-Yw