Page 37 - Primary Care Audiology
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Of course, there are some challenges to overcome in this area. For
example, the audiology workforce in secondary care has been in
decline for some time and now suffers from chronic shortages,
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with the British Academy of Audiology stating that “the staffing
crisis is significant and without immediate action will worsen until
NHS audiology services grind to a halt”. 78
One reason for the more acute workforce crisis in secondary care is
that the current training route for most hospital-based audiologists
has been designed around non-audiological professions. As a
result, it is not sufficiently agile to help scale up the workforce to
meet population needs. We are committed to working with sector
partners and the NHS to help find solutions to some of these
structural challenges in secondary care.
Investing in primary care audiology
Meanwhile, in primary care audiology settings, the HCPC-registered
audiologist workforce has doubled to more than 4,300 in less than
a decade. As a sector, we are also making record investments in
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training and development and supporting HCPC registrants with
CPD and additional training to expand their scope of practice to
meet the population needs of the future.
We will continue to base our workforce planning in primary care
audiology on population needs and factor in likely technological
innovations in the coming years, including new technologies
that make skilled wax removal even safer. This will ensure we are
prepared for when subgroups of people with hearing loss obtain
self-fitting hearing aids and seek a different kind of support from
audiologists than they do today.
As we have seen with pharmacists, optometrists and dispensing
opticians, we also expect primary care audiologists to take on more
complex caseloads over time and support hospital-based colleagues
by delivering higher levels of first-line care in primary care settings.
At the heart of this will be ensuring high education standards
and training.
Primary care audiology – accessible ear and hearing care for all 37
