We aim to create the environment and opportunities for our members to flourish and deliver a wider range of services to service users. We respond to public consultations  on behalf of members and work directly with governments and policymakers at senior level, so that audiology and hearing problems are taken seriously.

This page tells you more about our policy and advocacy work.

In this section

• Our goal
• Shaping the future
• Partnerships

Our goal - better hearing care for all

Our goal is to work in partnership with our members and other organisations to achieve better hearing care for all by:

• Ensuring hearing care is an integral part of the population and public health
• Breaking down artificial barriers between primary, community and secondary care which get in the way of excellent patient care
• Supporting appropriate and proportionate regulation
• Securing the workforce, infrastructure and funding models necessary to deliver world-class hearing care across the UK.

Shaping the future

We work with governments, the NHS, third sector and partners across health and social care for the benefit of members and patients and in the public interest, we do this by:

Horizon scanning

We support our members by horizon scanning and helping shape the future of hearing services in the UK through our expertise in health policy, regulation, economics and advocacy. The scale of our membership and our rational, evidence-based approach to clinical, regulatory and health funding issues makes us one of the most influential sector organisations.  

Supporting effective legislation and regulation

We support regulation that works in the public interest and robustly challenge over-bureaucratisation which adds costs but no benefit for patients.

We do this by initiating, influencing and responding to policy developments and proposed changes in legislation and regulations that affect our members. We also submit evidence on hearing services and hearing health to government bodies and parliamentarians.  

Responding to consultations on your behalf

We analyse and respond to a broad range of consultations on behalf of our members and the wider sector, including health professions regulation, commissioning, health financing, clinical guidelines and business regulation. We do this to protect and advance hearing services for all.

We list live consultations in our members' newsletter, so if you want to take part in any consultation you can by directly emailing our policy leads: [email protected].  

See our responses to consultations and access policy resources.

Partnerships

As the association for hearing care providers in the UK, we support collaborative working with other organisations for the benefit of our members, patients and in the public interest.  

We are proud partners of the Hearing Loss and Deafness Alliance, a coalition of charities and professional representative groups working in partnership to prevent and reduce the impact of hearing loss and tinnitus, and to promote the inclusion and participation of people who are deaf and hard of hearing in our society.

We also work in partnership with the National Association of Primary Care (NAPC), a not-for-profit, social purpose development and support organisation - making primary healthcare better for all.

If you share our goals  and want to partner with NCHA to protect and advance hearing care in the UK, in the public interest, then please get in touch at [email protected].