17 June 2016

Hearing Sector Promotes National Commissioning Framework to NHS Leaders

Members of the Hearing Loss and Deafness Alliance will share lessons from hearing care at an influential think tank event on 22 June

One year on since the launch of the Department of Health and NHS England Action Plan on Hearing Loss, the Hearing Loss and Deafness Alliance is hosting a workshop at the Kings Fund to share how commissioners, provider organisations and patient groups co-produced a Framework for hearing services, Commissioning Services for People with Hearing Loss: A Framework for Clinical Commissioning Groups.  The event will also share how one CCG in England has improved access to NHS adult hearing services by removing the need for a GP referral and the benefits this is expected to bring.

The Framework is intended to tackle unwarranted variation, keep people independent and healthy for longer, and meet hearing needs in a sustainable way. Lessons shared will be applicable to wider systems challenges, including the benefits of prioritising preventative and public health to reduce long-term costs. It will share learning on how the NHS has started to tackle unmet need, improve services and increase cost-effectiveness through outcomes based commissioning and innovation.

Fiona Carragher, Deputy Chief Scientific Officer at NHS England and Jeannette Hudson, Commissioner from Coventry and Rugby CCG will present on progress made in hearing care at a national and local level. The event will be chaired by Professor Chris Ham, Chief Executive at The King's Fund.

The workshop, Delivering better value - lessons from an integrated approach to addressing hearing loss, will start a day of talks at the influential Kings Fund think tank. The mini-conference, How changes in clinical practice can deliver better value: Learning from best practice approaches in the NHS, will bring together NHS leaders, commissioners and journalists to take a wider look at opportunities for the NHS to get better value from its budget. In particular it will cover recent work including Lord Carter’s Review into efficiency in the NHS, the NHS Five Year Forward View and the Kings Fund's Better value in the NHS report.