27 September 2024

NCHA member update - 27 September

This week:

• Apple launches AirPod hearing aids
• Clinical tool predicts chance of recovery from sudden hearing loss
• Health boards told to act on paediatric audiology failings
• NHS England publishes glue ear guide
• Ears to the ground
• Health policy news

Apple launches AirPod hearing aids

The FDA has authorised Apple to provide hearing aid functionality in the latest software update for AirPod users.

AirPod Pro 2 owners with iOS 18 can take a hearing test, store the results as an audiogram and transform their device into a 'personalised hearing aid'. Read the full story.

Clinical tool predicts chance of recovery from sudden hearing loss

New research from clinical scientists at UCLH shows that patients who received steroids within seven days of a sudden hearing drop were five times more likely to recover their hearing fully.

Only about 60 per cent of patients in the study (the largest to date) were treated within this critical window. So, the team at the National Institute for Health and Care Research UCLH Biomedical Research Centre developed an online tool to predict the chance of full hearing recovery in adults presenting with sudden hearing loss.

The SeaSHel recovery calculator, freely available online to clinicians, is based on five factors - age, the presence or absence of heart disease, presence or absence of dizziness, the severity of hearing loss and whether the person has already received steroid treatment.

Suddenly losing hearing in one ear happens to thousands of adults each year in the UK. A significant number will spontaneously recover, but most do not. Read more.

Health boards told to act on paediatric audiology failings

NHS England has written to Integrated Care Boards outlining the actions they should take to improve paediatric hearing services following the identification of systematic failings that led to missed diagnoses in NHS paediatric audiology services.

The letter reveals that 'desktop reviews' of 140 paediatric audiology services in the past year found that 90 services had either low or partial levels of quality assurance and required further, in-depth reviews to determine if they should recall babies and children at risk of harm due to misdiagnosis

Where a care board has a paediatric audiology service that the review has identified as having low or partial levels of quality assurance, NHS England will expect them to implement a national 'review and recall' process. The letter says: "Our national ambition is to complete all patient reassessments by March 2025, ensuring that all patients are either discharged or placed on an appropriate treatment pathway by September 2025."

The letter acknowledged that care boards had made progress in understanding the scale of these emerging challenges. They had developed tools and interventions in response to a letter calling for immediate action in August 2023, to ensure "every child receives the safe, high-quality care they deserve".

The Health Service Journal reported that several NHS trusts in England have declared more cases of possible harm caused to children whose hearing loss was missed or diagnosed late.

NHS England publishes glue ear guide

NHS England has released a new guide for parents of children with glue ear. Its decision-making support tool is designed to help parents awaiting follow-up treatment decide the best way to help their child.

The document explains what causes otitis media with effusion, how it can affect hearing, and how hearing loss can impact learning and development, behaviour and relationships. It also outlines management options, including surgical intervention with grommets, or non-surgical options such as hearing aids and communication tactics.

The tool has sections that list the healthcare professionals involved and a form for parents to fill out to help them decide on the best course of action for their child.

Ears to the ground

• The HCPC's revised standards of conduct, performance and ethics are now in effect. Read the details.
• Samantha Lear, president of the British Academy of Audiology, shares her views in interviews with Audiology World News and ENT & Audiology News.
• Tinnitus UK has appointed Alex Brooks-Johnson as its chief executive, the third appointment in three years.
• Singer Celine Dion celebrated International Day of Sign Languages by releasing videos of 20 of her songs in American Sign Language. See more.

Health policy news

NHS reform

Wes Streeting reiterated his support for independent audiology provision at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool this week. Speaking at an Institute for Government and New Statesman event, the health secretary said high street opticians and audiologists were already helping the NHS. He added: "We should work with the independent sector on the high street to improve access to healthcare."

The Government has vowed to make three strategic shifts in healthcare to help fix the NHS, which it has repeatedly described as 'broken'. They are a move from:

• Hospital to community care
• Analogue to digital
• Sickness to prevention

However, there will be no money without reform, according to the prime minister, who made the comment at the launch of a 10-year plan for health and care. Speaking at the King's Fund in London, Sir Keir Starmer said: "We have to fix the plumbing before we turn on the taps."

His comments follow former health minister Lord Ara Darzi's completion of a major review of the NHS, which described the health service as in a 'critical condition' due to a £37 billion capital spending gap and resources not being spent in the correct places.

The investigation found that the NHS care model was too heavily balanced towards hospital care. As a result, the "NHS budget is not being spent where it should be - too great a share is being spent in hospitals, too little in the community, and productivity is too low." The report concluded that the NHS must "lock in the shift of care closer to home by hardwiring financial flows" to expand primary and community care.

The latest waiting list figures showed no significant change in NHS waiting list figures in July. An estimated 7.62 million procedures were waiting to be carried out relating to 6.39 million patients.

Junior doctors finally agreed to end their strike action, with 66% accepting an offer that will see their pay rise by 22.3% in two years. The agreement comes after 44 days of industrial action since March 2023.

NCHA attends King's Fund event

The NCHA exhibited at the King's Fund event Moving Care Closer to Home. Following the launch of the health thinktank's report Making care closer to home a reality: refocusing the system to primary and community care, the conference explored what action is needed across primary, secondary and community care to reduce pressure on hospitals, and how to develop effective pathways to support better patient outcomes.

Harjit Sandhu, the NCHA's managing director, said: "We were delighted to engage with NHS leaders who all agreed that we need to transform how we deliver care, including by providing more care closer to home. This is the only way the NHS can meet growing population needs in a sustainable way."