Last week I wrote about the success of the new digital hearing aids and the way they have transformed communication.

The report mentions that since the RNID helped with the modernisation of the NHS audiology services in March last year 500,000 people have received high quality digital hearing aids free of charge - but that still leaves more than three million who could benefit.

NHS hearing aids sit behind the ear and have an external part that picks up sound and amplifies it via a tube into the ear canal.

Privately bought aids are small enough to fit right in the ear so that they are almost invisible.

But they can be very costly (prices range from £300 to more than £2,000) and are so tiny that they can be more difficult to insert and remove.

In terms of hearing quality, however, these in-the-ear aids are often better.

It can be tricky to operate the controls on these miniscule hearing aids and the natural wax that accumulates in the ear may damage them.

Remote controls are available, but it can be a chore to carry them about.

The RNID is launching a campaign to try and remove the embarrassment some people feel and make the wearing of hearing aids as unremarkable as wearing glasses.

It takes at least a year to get a NHS hearing aid but those who have them tell me that within weeks they can't do without them and one woman said it was as if her brain had come out of hibernation.

A little time is needed for adjustment, but a friend I spoke to last week enthused on how much they had increased his enjoyment of music when without his aids he was almost completely deaf; and he rejoiced that this had been made possible by technical and not medical means.

For many years the RNID has been fighting to improve communication for deaf users of the telephone system and the Typetalk relay service based in Liverpool has been streamlined recently to speed up phonecalls for the many thousands of deaf people who use the service every day for personal or business use.

My wife uses it frequently for everyday things such as reserving a table in a restaurant, ordering an oil delivery and booking the car in for service.

The hearing person on the other end just has to speak normally on the phone and the words are immediately changed into text for the deaf person to read.

Other changes planned include total subtitled coverage of all TV programmes and improvements to the way film shows and stage performances can be adapted for deaf audiences.

Wilton House will this year be celebrating its hundredth anniversary and it will be salutary to look back on the way services for deaf people have changed since the days of pioneers like Francis Magin, the deaf superintendent who helped deaf joiners and sheet-metal workers obtain jobs on the Titanic.

Source: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/features/story.jsp?story=676448