Richard Turner: Time to act now on hearing loss

I felt honoured to be invited to the launch of Action on Hearing Loss’s ‘Hearing Matters’ report recently at the House of Commons. It was launched at a cross-party reception for MPs hosted by the MP Lillian Greenwood, a strong supporter of Action on Hearing Loss and advocate of their ‘SubtitleIt!’ campaign.

It was great to meet other deaf and hard of hearing people there who I have connected with on social media and who share a passion for campaigning on important issues affecting our lives – such as improving the provision and access of subtitled video-on demand and catch-up TV services and trying to reverse NHS hearing aid cuts. It was also great to meet Lilian Greenwood and have a really good chat to the Labour MP Steve McCabe.

There are still so many barriers to access for deaf and hard of hearing people to lots of different areas in society, as well as employment and education and continued discrimination. We need to keep raising awareness of these issues among the wider public and campaign to improve them if we are to make a difference and strive for equality and inclusion in society.

The ‘Hearing Matters’ report is an important report, which covers lots of different areas related to hearing loss. It highlights the fact that by 2035 there will be one in five of us living with some form of hearing loss compared to one in six now.

They highlight how important it is, therefore, for our national government to work together with local authorities to implement local, community-based action plans to support people living with hearing loss.

I think it is wonderful that deaf and hard of hearing people from around the country have come together and got involved in Action on Hearing Loss’s recent campaigns, such as the ‘SubtitleIt!’ campaign and the campaign against NHS hearing aid cuts in North Staffordshire. It is amazing what we can all achieve together when we feel passionate about a common cause and empowered to do something about it.

Action on Hearing Loss is also involved in carrying out lots of medical research on hearing loss and tinnitus. I am particularly interested in what they are doing with the cochlear implant manufacturer AB to improve cochlear implant technology. From my personal perspective as a deafened adult, I feel incredibly lucky to have received a cochlear implant last year. It has been truly life-changing for me!

Without it, I would not be able to communicate with my family and friends like I can now. It has also given me the confidence to find work and do the job I’m doing now, which I feel really passionate about.

As our society ages, the problem of age-related hearing loss among the over 65s will only get worse and we need to take action and address it now before it is too late. We need to have more health screening programmes for the over 65s. We also need to think in a holistic way about how we can provide more community-based projects to support people living with hearing loss.

For instance, I work on the ‘Hear to Help’ service in my local Borough of Redbridge, run by Action on Hearing Loss. We support people living with hearing loss in my local community by showing them, their carers and family members how to maintain and care for their NHS hearing aids and how to communicate effectively with someone with a hearing loss.

I used to be a volunteer on this service for over four years before I was employed by them and I have seen the numbers of people we see grow over those years. It is still mainly run by trained volunteers, many of whom are hearing aid users themselves. As well as running regular drop-in hearing aid clinics, we also visit people in their homes, care homes and hospitals in the community.

Many older people suffering from hearing loss feel vulnerable and socially isolated. They find the support we give them invaluable. We help them get better use out of their hearing aids when they may be reluctant to wear them because they are not used to them or they don’t know how to maintain them.

We often see the same clients coming back to us regularly and telling us how much better they feel since we have helped them with their hearing aid problems.

Most of the clients we see have moderate hearing loss and before they had their hearing aids, they were struggling to communicate with their family and friends and felt reluctant to leave the house and socialise with other people as they felt isolated and vulnerable, missing out on everyday conversations. I can see how much they have improved and gained in confidence after accessing our ‘Hear to Help’ clinics.

This is why it is so important that older people living with hearing loss feel supported in their local community and are not denied the basic hearing aids they need on the NHS.

North Staffordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has become the first CCG in the country to stop providing hearing aids to most people. Under the CCG’s new policy, people with mild hearing loss will no longer receive hearing aids and people with moderate hearing loss will have to pass an eligibility test to get them. Four other CCGs are proposing to follow in the steps of North Staffordshire, meaning the cuts could affect over 145,000 people.

These people have paid their national insurance all their lives and it is cruel that they are denied access to hearing aids when they really need them, which results in them being cut-off from their friends and family and excluded from society.

It is a very short-sighted approach, aimed at saving paltry amounts of money, but over the long-term it will end up costing our already overstretched NHS much more as a result of increased mental and physical health problems brought on by their untreated hearing loss, resulting in reduced wellbeing and a lower quality of life.

I really hope that more people read this important report and share it widely. We all need to take more action to improve equality and inclusion for deaf and hard of hearing people in our society.

Instead of cuts to funding and NHS hearing aid provision, we need more community-based support services and holistic approaches to stop more problems building up in the future as a result of not planning properly for our rapidly ageing population and adopting short-term thinking.

Link to Action on Hearing Loss ‘Hearing Matters’ report: http://www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/supporting-you/policy-research-and-influencing/research/hearing-matters.aspx

By Richard Turner. Richard blogs at his own blog, Good Vibrations and works in hearing aid support for Action on Hearing Loss