§ Miss McIntoshTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress is being made on increasing the availability of digital hearing aids for patients in York and North Yorkshire. [95201]
§ Jacqui SmithFunding has been made available for the years 2003–04 and 2004–05 to ensure that a modernised service, providing digital hearing aids, will he available from all National Hearing Service hearing aids services in England by April 2005.
Those NHS hospital trusts not yet involved in the modernisation project will now need to discuss with their respective primary care trusts whether they wish to modernise in 2003–04 or 2004–05.
§ Mr. HoyleTo ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will provide digital hearing aids on the NHS in Chorley; and when the next round of allocations for the provision of digital hearing aids on the NHS will be announced. [97693]
§ Jacqui SmithFunding has been made available for the years 2003–04 and 2004–05 to ensure that a modernised service, providing digital hearing aids, will be available from all National Health Service hearing aids services in England by April 2005.
Those NHS hospital trusts not yet involved in the modernisation project will now need to discuss with their respective primary care trusts whether they wish to modernise in 2003–04 or 2004–05.
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§ Tim LoughtonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he expects to use non-NHS providers to achieve full coverage of digital hearing aids under the Modernising Hearing Aid Services Programme. [97877]
§ Jacqui SmithFollowing a successful pilot, which provided National Health Service aids via private hearing aid providers, we intend to extend public private partnerships to boost NHS capacity, reduce waiting times and to make it easier for people with hearing impairment to access services—on the high street rather than in hospitals. We are drawing up plans for this work and want to make rapid progress.
§ Tim LoughtonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many additional audiologists he estimates will need to be recruited to provide digital hearing aids for the target user group within the two year timetable. [97890]
§ Jacqui SmithIt is currently estimated that an additional two audiological posts will be required by each site as it is modernised to become a service that provides digital hearing aids. As modernised hearing aid services are rolled out across England over the next two years, work will be continuing on skill-mix and involvement of the private sector, which could have an effect on that estimate.
§ Tim LoughtonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS trusts do not offer digital hearing aids; and what estimate he has made of when each of them will be able to start fitting digital hearing aids. [97891]
§ Jacqui SmithAll National Health Service hearing aid services will be providing digital hearing aids by April 2005. We plan to modernise 80 in 2004–05 and the remaining services, approximately 70, in 2004–05.
By the end of March, there will be a total of 50 NHS trusts providing digital hearing aids as part of a modernised hearing aid service. In addition, any NHS hearing aid service which has received appropriate training and equipment is able to access the NHS digital hearing aid contract. This represented in the region of 23 additional trusts accessing the contract at the beginning of this financial year, five of which have since joined the modernisation programme. By April 2003, a further 17 services will have received, through the modernisation programme, the equipment and training to enable them to access the contract. We understand that there may be other trusts who supply digital hearing aids outside the NHS contract. Those figures are not held centrally.