WAITING TIMES FOR HEARING AIDS

That this House shares the concern of RNID, the British Academy of Audiologists, and many people waiting for life-changing digital hearing aids at the news that adult audiology services will not be subject to the 18-week waiting time target from GP referral to assessment; believes that this will exacerbate the lack of audiology funding as resources are diverted elsewhere and that patients, many of them older people whose independence is severely curtailed by the delay in getting a hearing aid, will increasingly face long waiting times, which are already over a year in many areas and in some cases over two years; and calls on the Government to publish the promised separate action plan for audiology as a matter of urgency.