Page 19 - Primary Care Audiology

Delivering sustainable change

There is widespread agreement across all UK governments and
health experts that it is imperative to reduce the dependency on
hospital models of care and switch to more preventive primary
care models. 38

However, concerns that moving care, albeit to benefit patients,
will destabilise hospital services can delay much-needed change.
Similar concerns are raised about primary care services being
overwhelmed and budgets exceeded by patients self-referring.
Nevertheless, evidence shows that demand in primary care is
predictable, and hospital services do not have the capacity to meet
growing need. Also, hospitals are costly and complex places and
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far from ideal settings to deliver non-medical care like adult hearing
aid services – e.g. hospitals in England alone have historically
reported providing more than 1 million routine hearing aid aftercare
interactions each year when there is already insufficient capacity
to meet higher medical needs. Primary care audiology reduces
pressure on GPs and hospitals and saves the NHS money, which
can then be reinvested in frontline care.
Following the evidence and making change happen in the best
interests of patients is essential if health systems are to meet ear
and hearing needs as cost-efficiently as possible and without
massive backlogs and clinically unsafe waiting times.
We know that this is achievable. A growing number of NHS trusts
have chosen to focus on higher-risk priorities and have safely
withdrawn from providing NHS adult hearing aid services, which
primary care audiology now delivers. This has freed up hospital
capacity to focus on specialist services.

Service transformation in Preston is a case in point, allowing
specialist hospital audiology and ENT services to deliver significant
efficiency improvements, benefiting all patients, the NHS and
taxpayers and better matching supply to demand.

Primary care audiology – accessible ear and hearing care for all 19