Page 17 - Primary Care Audiology

The calculator enables comparison between different adult hearing
care pathways and assesses whether more patients can be treated
within the same budget through service innovation.
Worked example:

• NHS England’s planning guidance states that adults with
hearing loss should be able to self-refer to audiology because GP
involvement is not clinically necessary. It therefore advises all ICBs
to implement self-referral for NHS adult hearing care. 34
• Evidence shows that the NHS can buy three years of care at a fixed
price by risk-sharing with providers at a lower cost than traditional
models of care. 35
• Adult hearing loss is a long-term condition and people need
ongoing care. The calculator, therefore, follows one cohort from
year one for six years and provides more realistic cost estimates for
caring for a long-term condition like adult hearing loss.
• The calculator can be used to estimate the costs of seeing 550,000
adults using different care pathways. It shows that:

• It would cost the NHS £622m if these patients had to see a GP
and had hearing care funded using the traditional model of care
• It would cost the NHS £463m if these patients accessed primary
care audiology without a GP referral, and NHS commissioners
paid a fixed price for three years of care
• That saves £159m or 25% per cohort of patients

• The money saved could treat an additional 188,712 people with
the same NHS budget.

These findings are in line with other NHS evidence, which shows
savings of between 20% and 25% before adjusting for Market Forces
Factor (MFF). 36

Primary care audiology – accessible ear and hearing care for all 17