Hearing aid delay was 'avoidable'

9:50am Friday 21st October 2005

Hearing impaired people are hugely frustrated about the long delays to get digital hearing aids at West Middlesex Hospital, according to Twickenham's MP, Dr Vincent Cable.

When the NHS embarked on the roll-out of digital aids, West Middlesex Hospital was one of the last hospitals to be included in the programme.

Since then, staffing problems mean that local people are waiting long periods before being seen, it is said.

Recently, The Richmond and Twickenham Times featured an article about 101-year-old Ena Thompson, from Isleworth, who is still waiting for a hearing aid.

And now a retired optician from Teddington, Sam Rosenthal, has contacted Dr Cable to claim he is 750th on the waiting list for a hearing aid. This could mean he will be 119-years-old before he qualifies.

Dr Cable, who has taken up the issue with the hospital, said he had first campaigned, in parliament, on the availability of digital hearing aids on the NHS five years ago and was told by ministers that the programme would be completed long before now.

He said: "For some reason the West Middlesex was very slow to anticipate a new NHS initiative which is important for the quality of life of thousands of people with failing hearing.

"Staff were not recruited and the hospital cannot now handle the demand.

"This is simply bad planning as there were clear professional and political signals five years ago that this programme was on the way.

"In the meantime, local NHS patients have to put up with impaired hearing or fork out hundreds of pounds to have the equipment fitted privately."

West Middlesex Hospital was only funded as part of the national roll-out at the beginning of this year. It claims that since then it has worked hard to fit digital hearing aids to all patients.

Patients who already have analogue hearing aids are being updated to digital as soon as possible, and new patients are fitted with digital from the outset.

There is a waiting list for both new and existing patients, caused by a number of factors which are shared by hospitals across the country.

A hospital spokesman said: "Priority is given to patients meeting certain criteria, for example, those with terminal illness, those with dual sensory impairment (registered blind as well as deaf), war pensioners, patients referred by a consultant as medically urgent, and patients assessed as having severely restricted means of communications."

West Middlesex Hospital has also advised that Mr Rosenthal has move to 568th position on the list.