"Ear wax removal"

Thank you for asking the question regarding ear syringing at Fieldhead Surgery.

As from November 2016, the surgery ceased to offer the ear syringing service for the foreseeable future.

As ear syringing is a non-core service, this means that practices are not funded to provide it and therefore all costs to run the service are picked up by the practice.

The surgery purchased the only licenced machine at a cost of nearly £1000 and between January and August 2016 we had repeated issues with technical faults.

As a result, we had 6 replacement ear syringing machines in 8 months.

Upon trying to return the machine for repair for the seventh time we were informed by our suppliers that they had ceased to sell the licenced machine due to the number of faults being reported nationally and we were unable to order a replacement.

Re-organisation of clinics takes staff time and the change of appointment dates is inconvenient to patients.

Repairs to equipment are costly.

These are difficult times financially for providers of NHS care and to ensure a sustainable practice of core services for our patients, we have taken the decision to cease this non-core service at the moment.

Fieldhead Surgery will not be able to pick up the bill for our patients using a private provider or any associated travel costs as ear syringing is not currently a core service that we are contracted to provide.

Practice Manager

Fieldhead Surgery