Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to (a) improve access to NHS hearing aids and (b) reduce waiting times for repairs by NHS qualified hearing care providers.

Audiology services are locally commissioned services and responsibility for waiting times for National Health Service audiological services lies with local NHS commissioners.

The NHS England’s ‘Action Plan on Hearing Loss’ published in 2015 sets out key objectives on hearing loss including: prevention, early diagnosis, maximising independence, and enabling people to take part in every-day activities. NHS England has produced a series of guides to help deliver the recommendations of the Action Plan which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/what-works-guides-action-plan-on-hearing-loss/

If an individual has an NHS hearing aid, they can get free batteries and repairs from the NHS hearing aid service who fitted the hearing aids.