Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that community-based ear wax removal services are made available to patients in (a) Harrow East constituency and (b) England.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) have a statutory responsibility to commission cost-effective healthcare to meet the needs of their local populations. This includes the arrangement of services for ear wax removal. When ICBs exercise their functions, including commissioning healthcare services such as ear wax removal, they have a duty to reduce inequalities between persons 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.

Manual ear syringing is no longer advised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (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.