Long waits for hearing aids

Patients are waiting up to three years for NHS hearing aids depending on where they live, it has been revealed today.

But under the "postcode lottery" system of health care the wait can be as little as three weeks, according to a report. In the West Midlands, a Stafford hospital has the worst record on waiting times. At Staffordshire General Hospital the wait is a year for a first appointment. It takes 58 weeks to get hearing aids and the wait for a digital upgrade is two years.

Of the hospitals in the region that supplied information for the survey, the shortest wait for a first appointment is at Walsall Manor Hospital – between four and six weeks – although it no longer does fittings.

The British Society of Hearing Aid Audiologists commissioned Suffering in Silence which found that despite government promises of action to cut waiting times, the national average wait remains high at almost nine months with a third of hospitals having longer waiting times.

The situation for those wanting to replace a hearing aid with a digital model is even worse with half of hospitals having a wait of more than six months and two five years.

The Princess Royal University Hospital at Orpington, Kent, has the longest wait of 164 weeks for a first hearing aid to be fitted.

A fifth of all hospitals in England said their waiting lists for first fittings had increased over the year, but across the UK average waiting times are down to 36 weeks.

The average waiting times for upgrades to digital in the UK was down to 42 weeks compared to 64 last year. The society's president Mark Georgevic said the report came only days after the Government's own figures showed there were 127,000 people waiting for a hearing assessment.

The West Midlands average figures for weeks to wait for first appointment is 16 - down from 34 to 35 last year.The average wait from first appointment to fitting is six weeks. The wait for upgrade to digital is 35 to 38 weeks – which is down from 81.

The waiting list league

Current waiting list times, in weeks, for NHS hearing aids (figures in brackets are for 2006).

Cannock Chase Hospital – 52 (91); Manor Hospital, Walsall – No fittings done now (104); Russells Hall Hospital, Dudley – Not known (nk); Staffordshire General Hospital, Stafford – 58 (117); West Park Hospital, Wolverhampton – Not known (65); Worcestershire Royal Hospital – 14 to 16 (refused information)