Newspaper was wrong to say former NHS chairman is proposing charges for hearing aids

An article in The Guardian wrongly claimed an ex-NHS chairman was suggesting people pay between £4 and £8 for hearing and mobility aids, sparking concern among Deaf people.

The report, published by the newspaper on Sunday, said Professor Stephen Smith is “urging ministers to bring in charges of £4 to £8 to help cover the costs of medical equipment that patients need, such as hearing aids and walking devices”.

However, not once is the term “hearing aid” mentioned in the paper by Professor Smith, a former chairman of East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust.

Instead, the £4 to £8 sum is mentioned in relation to Germany’s approach to healthcare, where “there is a co-payment of around £8 per in-patient day for hospital and rehabilitation stays (for the first 28 days per year), and £4 to £8 for prescribed medical aids”.

Meanwhile, the five recommendations put forward by Professor Smith are charges for missed appointments and other abuses of the NHS system; encouraging private healthcare schemes; “top-up fees” to cover ‘hotel’ services for hospitals and care homes; commercialising new ideas in areas such as technology and biomedical science; and a dedicated tax for “assessment-driven health and social care”.

In a statement accompanying the publication of the book by the “radical centre” think tank Radix, Professor Smith focussed on his tax recommendation and said: “Evidence from around the globe shows that systems involving hypothecated taxes for health and social care have many benefits, including increasing transparency into government spending and ensuring that the resources intended for health and social care are spent there.”

Radix CEO Ben Rich added: “The current system for funding the NHS has proven to be disastrous in a number of ways, primarily the fact that it simply doesn’t raise enough money to provide adequate and reliable healthcare to the millions that rely on it.

“A hypothecated tax is one of the only solutions that appears to be both realistic and effective in overcoming these challenges”.

The full report can be found on Radix’s website.

Photo: Matthijs/Flickr.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.