14-Month Waits to Have Hearing Tests

By ADRIAN BUTLER

PATIENTS are having to wait up to 14 months to be tested for hearing aids at Liverpool’s biggest hospital.

The 58-week delays at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen hospitals are more than three times the maximum wait which has been set down in government targets.

One hearing charity today said no-one should have to wait that long.

But bosses said more money was being invested in the service this year to speed things up.

A report to the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen NHS Trust board says: “The director of information noted that the longest waiting time for pure tone audiometry (hearing aids) was 58 weeks.”

Government targets say hospitals should perform hearing tests and other examinations like MRI scans and barium enemas within 18 weeks.

But by March of this year, nearly 900 hearing aid patients had been waiting longer than this.

A spokesman for the Royal National Institute for Deaf People said: “No-one should have to wait more than 18 weeks – let alone an average of more than a year, as Liverpool patients do – when digital hearing aids can literally transfer their lives.”

In pure tone audiometry, patients hear different frequencies at different levels through headphones.

They press a button to show when they have heard something and results are shown on a graph or audiogram.

A spokeswoman for the Royal and Broadgreen said: “The trust is aware that there is a longer wait than we would like for patients accessing audiology tests.

“These are difficulties which we are aware of and we have been working closely with Liverpool PCT, the commissioners of the service, in recent months on this.

“As part of this work, we have identified how we can improve the service and we envisage there will be additional investment in audiology diagnostics during this year.

“We are confident this will deliver a significant improvement in the speed in which diagnostic tests for hearing difficulties are accessed by patients.”

adrian.butler@liverpool.com

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