New Action Plan to Tackle Waits for Hearing Services

A new drive to cut long waits across the country for hearing services, was announced today by Health Minister, Ivan Lewis.

Improving Access to Audiology Services in England is published and was developed in close consultation with a range of organisations, including the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID). It sets out clear guidance to the NHS on how to reduce waiting times and how to provide the additional 300,000 pathways that are needed in the run up to December 2008 to make a maximum wait of 18 weeks from referral to treatment possible for all audiology referrals.

The document aims to help audiology services deliver the following:

- By December 2008 all patients with hearing or balance problems that require care from a hospital consultant will be treated within 18 weeks

- All other patients with routine hearing loss should be assessed within 6 weeks by March 2008 and it is also good practice for the subsequent hearing aid fitting to be carried out soon after or at the same time as assessment.

Ivan Lewis said:

"This plan will transform experience of audiology services for all patients with a hearing or balance problem.

"We accept that waits in some parts of the country are unacceptably long and this plan sets out how we will work with the NHS to reduce them and at the same time deliver high quality services closer to home.

Dr John Low, Chief Executive of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, said:

"On behalf of the hundreds of thousands of people who are waiting for an NHS hearing aid, RNID welcomes the Department of Health action plan to bring NHS hearing aid provision within the 18 week waiting time framework by December 2008. If implemented, this will be very good news for deaf and hard of hearing people whose lives can literally be transformed by timely high quality fitting of modern digital hearing aids".

Reducing waiting times and improving services will be achieved in the following ways:

- Better referral practices and waiting list management could reduce the 20% of audiology hearing services cases that are currently referred to consultants

Purchasing extra capacity from the independent sector. By April, primary care trusts will agree contracts with local secondary care providers, including audiology services. They will also make plans for the amount to be procured through the phase 2 independent sector elective audiology procurement.

- Primary care trusts will work with NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts, GP practices, neighbouring PCTs, IS and third sector providers, social services and local authorities to reorganise and modernise services to reduce waiting times.

- One-stop shops. Assessments and fitting have been piloted in several locations and have shown that there are significant benefits compared to the need for several separate visits covering assessment, fitting, advice, counselling etc. For instance in Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital Trust, a new approach has seen referral to treatment waiting times for new patients fall from 28 weeks to 21 weeks in the last year and for those re-entering the service from 25 to 11 weeks.