"Overall lack of awareness"

Dear sambagh63

Thankyou for your feedback. I am really sorry that your experience with the Audiology department has not met your expectations and this is quite disheartening. Our normal policy for repairing faulty hearing aids is for either a face-to-face repair appointment within 3-5 working days (this can be dependent on where the individual chooses this appointment given we are not at every community site 5 days a week) or by post and return. We hold replacement hearing aids to replace faulty hearing aids so once they are received and checked, they are renewed immediately.

The only wait that we have is for new earmoulds. There is a longer turnaround time to allow for the postal system and for the moulds to be manufactured by our supplier. This can be dependent on their systems and processes and staffing capacity. We have recently changed supplier for this reason, as the moulds were taking too long to be returned. The average length of time is currently 3 weeks, however this is out of our control as we are dependent on these postal and supplier companies. For patients with severe to profound hearing losses, we do often send the impressions to the supplier requesting a 24 hour turn around time.

To mitigate problems with the post, we have also recently purchased an earmould scanner which will take 3D images of the impression and these can then be sent electronically straight to the supplier. We are in the process of finalising the installation of this equipment.

As this feedback is anonymous, I am unable to comment on your individual case, however if you would like to speak to me to discuss this I would be more than happy to look into this in detail. Our number is 01271 322476.

Again, I am sorry that you feel let down by the service.

Best wishes

Claire Banks

Head of Audiology