14 October 2015

Tide turns on hearing aid cuts

Stoke-on-Trent Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has announced it will not be making cuts to local hearing services in a victory for common sense and evidenced-based commissioning.

The move comes in the same week that neighbouring North Staffordshire CCG was criticised by Staffordshire County Council for pursuing false economies and a flawed consultation process in their move to cut hearing services for age-related hearing loss. Staffordshire County Council covers both CCG regions and said the decision in North Staffs had contradicted the area’s own long term strategy for supporting people to age well.

North Staffs CCG’s decision to cut services that help people to age well and remain independent for longer have made them the only commissioning group in England to disregard NHS England'sFive Year Forward View and the Department of Health's Action Plan on Hearing Loss in pursuing short term cuts in place of evidence-based commissioning.

Staffordshire neighbours Stoke-on-Trent CCG have dismissed similar plans in the light of the evidence. Health and social care workers in the region will be able to continue using NHS England's Practical Guide to Ageing which advises people that "It is important to identify hearing loss early as treatment is more likely to be effective when problems are diagnosed early".

Harjit Sandhu, Director of Policy, said: "The World Health Organisation, NHS England, the Department of Health, Monitor, every other CCG in England, and the NHS in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have a different view from North Staffordshire CCG. The universal focus seems to be on early diagnosis, support and enablement. Common sense has prevailed in Stoke-on-Trent, but there is still a lack of accountability in North Staffordshire where commissioners are convinced they are right, that the regulator and hearing experts are wrong and that restricting access to NHS care for age-related hearing loss is fair and equitable."

Read about what Action on Hearing Loss is doing here