AN initiative to help its employees with hearing difficulties has been introduced by a packaging firm.

An estimated seven per cent of the workforce at Amalgamated Packaging, part of Remploy, the country's largest employer of disabled people, have hearing problems.

The firm is now installing textphones in its Burnley factory as part of moves to improve the workplace for employees.

The textphones display text and have a keyboard for users to type outgoing messages.

Messages can then be sent to another textphone or directed to the National Telephone Relay Service where operators will pass the message on to a hearing person and then take a reply.

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