§ 2. Mr. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight)If he will make a statement on the provision of digital hearing aids. [116525]
§ The Minister of State, Department of Health (Jacqui Smith)Over the next two years, we are investing £94 million to make the benefits of digital hearing aids fitted as part of a modernised service available more widely on the NHS. All NHS hearing aid centres in England will be providing digital hearing aids by April 2005.
§ Mr. TurnerI am glad to hear it, but my constituents are concerned that they have to pay for digital hearing aids, while in wealthier places on the mainland, they are available free on the NHS. Will the Minister explain why she wrote on 27 May:
If the services commissioned by a PCT…do not meet the needs of a particular patient, then GPs do also have freedom to refer elsewhere using the Out of Area …arrangements",while my health trust and PCT both confirm that the nearest pilot site is Winchester and that there is no referring outside area?
§ Jacqui SmithThat is why it is important that everybody, wherever they live, gets access to digital hearing aids on the NHS. St. Mary's hospital in the hon. Gentleman's constituency is keen to take part in the modernising hearing aids scheme, and by April 2005 it will have the opportunity to do so. His constituents, along with those in the whole of England, will, for the first time, be able to get their digital hearing aids not by going private, but through the NHS.
§ Mr. Tom Levitt (High Peak)My hon. Friend will be aware that there are some 2 million hearing aid users and perhaps another 2 million who should be using hearing aids. Will she take it from me that to move in three or four years from a position in which no digital hearing aids were available on the NHS to one in which they are 100 per cent. available is a highly commendable achievement? Does she accept that that speed of progress is related to the training and availability of audiologists; and will she assure the House that appropriate training and recruitment of audiologists is taking place to complement the measure?
§ Jacqui SmithMy hon. Friend, who has some expertise, is absolutely right. It is important that we not only introduce new hearing aids, but support that with a modernised service so that people can have the checkups and preparation that are necessary to make the best use of digital hearing aids. We can do that, first, by helping staff to work in a different way and, secondly, by increasing the number of audiologists. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that from this September, three additional degree courses for audiologists are starting, with more to follow in coming years. Those courses, which are funded by the Department of Health, will ensure that we have the staff in place to match the extra investment that will make the service available to people using the NHS in England.
§ Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West)Given that the principal logjam is in gaining access to an NHS 6 audiologist, what progress is being made in giving private hearing aid dispensers access to the NHS contract for digital hearing aids?
§ Jacqui SmithI am interested not in encouraging people to go out of the NHS privately, but in enabling people within the NHS to get digital hearing aids for free. That is why we have started private sector pilots in Leeds and Shrewsbury that use capacity in the private sector to ensure that more NHS patients get digital hearing aids, and why we are developing a national framework contract to allow us to use capacity in the private sector for NHS patients.
The hon. Gentleman's question highlights the difference between Members on this side of the House and those on the other side. He, like the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), wants to encourage people to pay and get out of the NHS; we want to encourage people to get the service that they deserve in the NHS, and that is what we will do.