Janet Finch-Saunders, Member of the Welsh Parliament for Aberconwy has spoken out about the need for faster access to hearing services in Wales.
Yesterday, Janet addressed the Senedd on the importance of looking after our hearing and how we could improve audiology services by better integrating them into our communities. According to the National Community Hearing Association there are currently 527,100 adults in Wales (17% of population) with a degree of hearing loss that would benefit from treatment with hearing aids.
Moreover, in September 2023 nearly 10,000 people were waiting on appointments to receive hearing aids, a third of whom were waiting over 14 weeks. This represents a very real problem where compared to eyesight and access to opticians, audiology is very much treated as the Cinderella of the two.
To address this Janet has suggested that to free up vital primary care audiology services we look at a service delivery model that brings audiology services directly onto the high street. By adopting a similar approach to that of opticians, who are already providing some community audiology services to adults who chose to pay for their hearing loss care, health boards can add capacity as well as improving access.
Speaking after the debate, the Health and Social Care Minister, Eluned Morgan MS, said that while she did not have any ‘principle objection’ to the idea, she wanted to continue giving the public sector a ‘fair wind’ at delivering audiology services. Only then would she explore ‘alternatives’. However, the Minister did admit that Health Boards were ‘on notice’ to deliver.
As Janet explained:
“It is a no-brainer to adopt this model. The risk of investing in additional colleagues and premises would fall entirely to the independent providers.
“All independent providers on existing NHS contracts are also NHS Primary Care Optometry contractors with the necessary technical, administrative and clinical governance arrangements to provide an audiology service based on established NHS primary care models.
“It is also worth noting that this service delivery model is already in use by England and Ireland and has proven to be safely delivered.
“As the Minister said, our Health Boards are ‘on notice’, so it is high time that we seize the initiative and bring audiology into the 21st century. This is about relieving pressure on our beloved NHS so it can focus on what it does best, providing care to those who need it most in society.”
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