« Younger Cochlear Implant Recipients Have Stronger Language Skills than Non-Implant Hearing Aid Recipients | Main | Listening With Their Eyes »
September 18, 2007
Hearing Aid Wait Up to 3 years
Patients are waiting between three weeks and three years for NHS hearing aids depending on where they live, according to a report.
The British Society of Hearing Aid Audiologists (BSHAA) said the average waiting time remained almost nine months, and a third of hospitals had even longer lists.
Although some hospitals reported no waiting list for those replacing analogue with digital aids, the wait was more than six months at over half of hospitals in the UK, the organisation said.
Two hospitals had waiting lists of five years, while patients had been waiting up to three years at many others.
The BSHAA, which contacted all NHS audiology departments in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, represents the private sector.
It said the south east of England, where patients could expect to wait almost 18 months for a hearing test and a further six months to get their first hearing aid fitted, had become the "black spot" of the UK.
BSHAA president Mark Georgevic said: "Each time the survey has been published I have been saddened by the way it demonstrates the low priority placed on people with hearing loss, often those who have reached retirement and who deserve much better.
"Despite Government promises of action to cut waiting times, even now there is confusion about what the NHS priorities are."
The Government began making digital hearing aids available on the NHS in 2001. Research has shown that digital hearing aids offer patients a 40% improvement in hearing and, unlike the old-style analogue devices, they can be adapted to match environments.
There are nine million deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK, of whom an estimated two million use hearing aids, according to figures from the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID).
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hW-4wMWTtDClw_Se_xvmHHdRGstQ
Posted by 4HL on September 18, 2007 4:45 AM
Send this article to a friend