Hearing Aids - The Postcode Lottery  

The British Society of Hearing Aid Audiologists (BSHAA) has just completed a survey of NHS hearing aid waiting lists across the UK. The report highlights the fact that there are still lengthy waiting lists when it comes to the provision of hearing care within the NHS. The average maximum wait across the UK as a whole is still 36 weeks, twice the target that has been set by the Government for England. The average also hides significant variations across the whole of the UK, which clearly demonstrates the so-called Post Code lottery of healthcare.

The situation is worse in England where, though the average wait is lower, it remains above the UK average. Here patients can expect to wait between 36 and 38 weeks. 36% of English hospitals had waiting times greater than the UK average but this is a marked improvement on last year when more than half exceeded the average.

Waiting times in Scotland increased this year, where the average is between 31 and 33 weeks (compared with 29 to 31 weeks last year). There has been no change in the situation in Wales where patients still wait between 28 and 32 weeks. The number of hospitals which exceed the UK average waiting time has gone up, 36% have waiting lists longer than 36 weeks compared with just 25% a year ago.

The South East of England continues to be the worst place for patients looking for their first NHS hearing aid, and is the only region in England where waiting times have increased year on year. Now, people with hearing loss will wait between 84 and 92 weeks for their assessment and the fitting of a hearing aid, an increase of between 11 and 18 weeks on the year.

The South East also has the dubious distinction of having the hospital with the longest waiting list in the United Kingdom. Patients unlucky enough to be referred to the Princess Royal University Hospital, in Orpington, will have their assessment in just 8 weeks – but will then have to wait between two and three years to get a hearing aid fitted. The South East also has more hospitals which have reported an increase in waiting times during the last 12 months. Across the whole of the UK, 47% of hospitals had waiting lists over 6 months; in England just under half (48%); in Scotland, 65%, Wales, 55% and Northern Ireland 42%. Doncaster Royal Infirmary was the only hospital in the whole of the UK which reported no waiting lists at all for first time patients, although North Manchester Hospital, at Crumpsall, said their patients only had to wait three weeks.

BSHAA concludes “It cannot be right or fair in the 21st Century that people with hearing loss, many of them elderly, still have to wait between around eight or nine months for their first hearing aid, and in some areas over three years. Nor can it be right or fair that despite the Government promise in 2000, that everyone who needed a hearing aid in the future would get a digital one, many people are still waiting, and may have to wait up to five years”.

(Source: BSHAA’s report ‘Suffering In Silence 2007’. The full report is available at www.bshaa.com)