Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to reduce waiting times for hospital hearing (a) tests and (b) aid fitting in areas where no community audiology service is commissioned.

Audiology services are locally commissioned by the 42 integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. Waiting times for audiology assessments are recorded through the national diagnostic activity and waiting times collection. This data is reviewed and monitored monthly across the ICBs and NHS England.

NHS England has been working to enable improvement in access to audiology services including through developing an improvement guide, endorsed by the British Audiology Association, which outlines approaches the ICBs can take to address waiting times. NHS England’s National Diagnostics programme has supported implementation of this guide through a series of webinars and case studies to share learning.