"Hearing aids waiting time for fitting"

i Have been bringing my Mom down for appointments in the ENT department now for approx 15 months and despite consultant requesting a return within 3 months each time, appointments are either being forgotten to be sent out and we have to chase or appointments are sent but cancelled numerous times which then leaves a 6-8 month gap between seeing consultant. Outpatients appointment line seems to not communicate with ENT department and the whole system seems chaotic and disorganised.

On top of this poor service, we were grateful to be referred for my Mom to have a hearing test which lead to her needing hearing aids. The service at audiology was great for the hearing test and the moulding appointment to order hearing aids BUT despite being told it may take 6-8 weeks for fitting appointment, here we are 4-5 months later still waiting for the hearing aids to be fitted. Having chased this, like other reviews reported, we are now told that due to no audiologists and lack of recruitment, they can not say when we are likely to be seen and are still only working on jan/ feb patients at the moment!!!

Surely if there is that much backlog, the hospital should be looking to recruit private audiologist to help with the fitting backlog and stop seeing new people which will add to the wait list. Maybe the trust were too quick to cancel the Specsavers contract and should look to reinstate it.

My aunt in another county not far from here was seen under nhs contract at spec savers recently, had hearing test, and hearing aids ordered and fitted within 3 weeks!!

QA have a duty of care to provide good service to their patients and you are failing on so many levels. Quality of life for someone with a hearing impairment is greatly reduced and hearing aids help in making things easier in so many ways.

Really not good at all and extremely disappointing that you seem to not be looking for solutions or taking on board the complaints and extent of this problem.