Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of progress by the NHS in making available to patients new types of bone-anchored hearing aid.

NHS England commissions bone anchored hearing aids for patients with hearing loss as set out in itsclinical commissioning policy Bone Anchored Hearing Aids,published inApril 2013. This national commissioning policy ensures equity of access for patients in England, subject to them meeting the necessary criteria. The commissioning policy can be viewed on the NHS England website at the following link:

www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/d09-p-a.pdf