‘In space no one can hear you scream’, writes Bill Harvey in his special piece on hearing loss and that is exactly how the audiology community must feel about its involvement in primary care.
This week’s Optician has a special focus on audiology to raise some of the key issues.
Harvey harnesses a popular phrase to describe the mechanism of hearing but the topic is far from alien to our practising clinical editor. His specialism, low vision, offers a prime example of how hearing and vision are everyday impediments to many of his ageing patients.
The game changer for the hearing community was the launch last month of the National Commissioning Framework for hearing loss (see InFocus) a blueprint which also opens possibilities for the optical community.
It took more than 20 years for the NHS to even begin to provide community-based pathways for hearing loss in the UK after the scope and scale of the problem was pointed out by Action on Hearing Loss. It estimates that 11m people in the UK now have some form of hearing loss and by 2035 that will have ballooned to 15.6m. The arguments will sound familiar: an ageing population, the use of modern technology creating new problems, care needing to be delivered locally to reduce costs in secondary care, delivery of services in the high street increasing inclusion and take up.
There are many issues to take into account as described by Srivens’ Mark Georgevic. Optical practices can’t suddenly become audiologists and services are commissioned differently around the country, but an opportunity exists for optical practices to get involved.
Harvey points out that optometrists are best placed to let patients know their options. This should include hearing. A deaf ear has been turned to audiology for too long.
