Issue - meetings

John Beadle, Patient and Public Involvement Fora representative, Mark Devlin, Chief Executive, Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust, Alex Willoughby, Head of Audiology, Medway NHS Trust and Ingrid Coburn, Commissioning Manager - Audiology, Eastern & Coastal Kent PCT will be in attendance for this item.

(John Beadle, Patient and Public Involvement Forum Representative, Alex Willoughby, Head of Audiology of the Medway NHS Trust and Ingrid Cobourn, Commissioning Manager – Audiology of Eastern & Coastal Kent Primary Care Trust were in attendance for this item.)

(1)       The Committee had before them a briefing note on Audiology Services which set out the background to the service in England, the modernising programme for NHS Audiology Services, current waiting times, national waiting time targets, issues relating to funding independent treatments centres and the future of NHS Audiology Services.

(2)       The briefing note also covered the National Audiology Action Plan/Improving Access to Audiology Services in England.  The Committee noted that the House of Commons Health Select Committee had recently conducted a short enquiry into Audiology Services in England and their report was expected soon. 

(3)       Ms Cobourn spoke on behalf of Eastern & Coastal Kent PCT of the strategy being deployed by the PCT for the provision of audiology services. 

(4)       Ms Willoughby indicated that the NHS had the capacity to meet the demand but what was not available was the funding.

(5)       Mr Beadle then addressed the Committee and said that Kent was one of the worst areas in the country for audiology services.  He informed the Committee that quite a few patients would not benefit from digital hearing aids.  He said that digital hearing aids were more difficult to tune rather than an analogue hearing aid.  As a result this often had an impact on those patients in the most deprived areas who were suffering the most.

(6)       He referred to best Practice Standards and a document produced by the Royal National Institute for the Deaf entitled Audiology in Crisis.  He said that digital aids had been introduced four to five years ago and at that time the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) had recommended that there should an audit of all audiology departments to prepare for digital aids.  However this had not taken place in many areas.  Kent did not undertake an audit and therefore capacity problems had arisen. 

(7)       Ms Willoughby acknowledged that no audit had been undertaken in Kent when introducing digital hearing aids and as a result they had been inundated by patients who wanted to go ‘digital’ from ‘analogue’.

(8)       There were a number of people who had stopped using analogue hearing aids sometime before who were interested in receiving a digital hearing aid. 

(9)       Ms Willoughby also raised concerns around lack of staff and the lack of funding.

(10)     The Committee were also informed by Ms Willoughby of a change in to the qualifications to become an audiologist which required a four year degree course.  This had also had an impact on the number of audiologists available in the “job market”. 

(11)     Members of the Committee and those present then asked a whole range of questions relating to:-

·              how well audiologists were paid;

·              the difficulty in patients, particularly from rural areas such as Eynsford, accessing services in either Medway or  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15