SAM ROWLANDS, Member of the Welsh Parliament for North Wales is backing plans to help improve hearing care in North Wales.
Mr Rowlands recently took part in a roundtable on community audiology services in Wales which coincided with the launch of Specsavers’ Manifesto, a three-point plan for how Wales’s successful optometry model could be emulated for hearing care by, making use of capacity on the high street.
Mr Rowlands who has visited Specsavers in Broughton to see at firsthand what services the eye and hearing specialists provided said:
“I was delighted to be invited to take part in the roundtable discussion and to hear all about the launch of the Specsavers’ Manifesto and its plan to help improve hearing care in Wales.
“It was quite staggering to be told that there are already over 575,000 people with hearing loss in Wales, of whom 95% are over the age of 40 and that hearing loss is the fifth leading cause of disability in the country.
“Nowadays patients can seek treatment for eye problems from optometry practices like Specsavers, who provide NHS eye services and it would be good to see the same model being used for audiology.
“I definitely think working with the private sector like this is a step in the right direction as it all helps to bring down waiting lists within the Welsh NHS.”
Specsavers’ Manifesto and Access to Care Report calls for better use of community audiology services within the NHS to improve patient access, reduce hospital waiting lists, and prevent the negative health consequences of untreated hearing loss.
94% of people suffering adult-onset hearing loss will have uncomplicated, age-related hearing loss that could be diagnosed and treated by an audiologist in the community.
However, the lack of a community audiology service in Wales means those needing NHS hearing care must be referred into hospital services. As a result, hospital audiology waiting lists have continued to grow, while the third of the Welsh population who live in rural areas face difficulties accessing hospital-based audiology services.
Specsavers are calling for a transformation in access to hearing care services and calling on the next Welsh Government to develop a nationally commissioned primary care audiology service which fully utilises existing community-based providers and frees up hospital resources and staff to concentrate on complex cases.
And to reinstate the publication of audiology waiting list data which has been paused in Wales since January 2024. Audiologists working in the community are already delivering vital hearing care and could be doing so much more – they must be involved in the development and design of new services.
