Posts > Waiting times for NHS aids goes up ..... again!
Waiting times for NHS aids goes up ..... again!
Posted on 22/06/2011 09:13:00
The average waiting time for NHS hearing aids in Sunderland has now reached an average of 18 months. Sunderland Royal Hospital have blamed the shortage of qualified staff and an increase in demand for the wait.
One patient, James Oliver was told in January last year, that he would need two hearing aids and will have to wait until October this year before he has them fitted.
A spokesman for the hospital apologised and explained that a drive to recruit trained audiologists had failed due to “a chronic shortage of qualified adiologists”.
A spokesperson also said that digital hearing aids took longer to fit than the older analogue hearing aids and because of the significant rise in demand, the hospital had been left lacking.
After reviewing their plight the hospital had developed an internal training schedule in an attempt to address the problem. The hospital said that they had plans to reduce the waiting time but apologised for the length of time people had to wait.
A recent survey has shown that generally across England, the average wait for a hearing aid is 47 weeks, while four out of 10 UK hospitals have reported evenlonger queues.
The 78 year old that was told that his hearing aids wouldn’t be fitted until October this year said that his quality of life was suffering due to his hearing loss and that it was a sad situation to have to wait so long. His wife has also been told that she will need a hearing and and is also worried how long she will have to wait.
The rise is a stark comparison to four years ago when some hearing aids were fitted within a few weeks, said James, who remembers talking a lady from the church to hospital to have a hearing aid fitted.