23 March 2015

Breakthrough for NHS Hearing Care - Action Plan on Hearing Loss Published

Quality outcomes for people with hearing loss guaranteed by NHS England: Joined-up action on hearing loss begins 23 March 2015

The Department of Health and NHS England have published an Action Plan on Hearing Loss. The Action Plan recognises the importance of taking hearing loss seriously and commits NHS England and commissioners to better serving people with or at risk of hearing loss.

After decades of treating hearing loss as a low priority, NHS and health leaders have now recognised in this Action Plan that unsupported hearing loss results in unnecessary and avoidable consequences on quality of life, health inequalities and significant downstream costs.

The Action Plan is fully aligned with NHS England’s Five Year Forward View and, like the Forward View, seeks to move clinicians beyond traditional and institutional barriers to focus on patients, evidence and outcomes and to develop new models of care to meet 21st Century needs.

The Action Plan clearly identifies age as the leading cause of hearing loss in England and is clear that all stages of care “can be provided in a primary care setting”.  The backing of Public Health England emphasises that this is a major public health issue which must be addressed.

This report follows hard on the heels of Monitor’s report NHS adult hearing services in England: exploring how choice is working for patients on 5 March demonstrating that commissioners can improve standards, accountability and transparency while reducing costs per patient by 20-25%.  The timings cannot be coincidental and are clearly intended as a wake-up call for commissioners.

Mark Georgevic, Chair of the National Community Hearing Association (NCHA) said “This is a timely call to action for NHS commissioners and all who care about fairness, sensory impairment, equality of health outcomes, the future of the NHS and supporting older people. We must now all work together across boundaries to implement these and Monitor’s changes for the benefit of all.”

David Hewlett, NCHA Chief Executive added: “It is good to see NHS England calling for a co-produced national commissioning framework to guide commissioners and providers in England in the spirit of the Five Year Forward View.   Partnership working focussed on patients, evidence, outcomes and transparency are what we do and we look forward to playing a full part in developing the framework with our partners in the Hearing Loss and Deafness Alliance. Let’s not fail in this task and work night and day to get this commissioning framework out as soon as possible before more people of all ages needlessly suffer.”

Harjit Sandhu, Director of Policy at the NCHA said "the Action Plan is a turning point for people with or at risk of hearing loss but the risks must not be underestimated. Promises have been made in the past and just as quickly forgotten.  However this is a real commitment from the national leaders to transform how the country – not just the NHS – thinks about and acts on hearing loss. Sue Hill and her team at NHS England have shown true leadership. The Action Plan supports the NCHA’s call that commissioners must meet their statutory obligation to ensure continuous quality improvement and signals that NHS England and Monitor are working together and putting patients at the heart of what commissioners must do. It is now time for all providers and commissioners to share data and stand up and be counted for delivering value for money through accountable and high quality hearing services. We particularly welcome NHS England’s guarantee that quality in outcomes for people with hearing loss will finally be achieved. We will both work with NHS England to achieve it and hold them and ourselves to it.”