Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the (a) availability and (b) accessibility of NHS ear wax removal services in West Dorset constituency.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) have a statutory responsibility to commission cost-effective healthcare to meet the needs of their local population. This includes the arrangement of services for ear wax removal.

Across the West Dorset area, the NHS Dorset ICB is responsible for commissioning ear wax removal services in line with the recommendations for ear wax removal as set out in guidance produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng98/chapter/Recommendations

Manual ear syringing is no longer advised by the NICE due to the risks associated with it, such as trauma to their ear drum or infection, so general practitioners (GPs) will often recommend home treatment remedies to alleviate ear wax build-up.

However, in line with the NICE’s guidance, a person may require ear wax removal treatment if the build-up of earwax is linked with hearing loss. A GP could then consider referring the patient into audiology services, which ICBs are responsible for commissioning.

When ICBs exercise their functions, including commissioning healthcare services such as ear wax removal, they have a duty to reduce inequalities between people with respect to their ability to access health services, and to reduce inequalities between patients with respect to the outcomes achieved for them by the provision of health services.