Deaf News: Deaf people in Burton and East Staffordshire due to lose hearing aids given ‘stay of execution’

Extract from The Burton Mail:

HUNDREDS of hard-of-hearing people due to lose their free hearing aids as part of budget cuts have been given a stay of execution until September.

Plans announced by East Staffordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) last year would have left people with mild to moderate hearing loss no longer eligible for hearing aids on the NHS.

However, the CCG has now delayed these plans following an audiology inquiry day and has decided to wait for the national report of the Hearing Loss Commissioning Guidance Advisory Group which is due out in April.

A full re-procurement of hearing loss services will be made in September.

Shelagh McKiernan, councillor for Horninglow and Stretton on Staffordshire County Council and campaigner against the cuts, said that she did not believe the fight was over.

She said: “I’m pleased that it’s not going ahead right now, but as I fear, the CCG plans to do it. We have not gone away and breathed a sigh of relief, but it is good to get a stay of execution.”