Hearing Aid Rule Changes – Welcomed by County's Health Scrutiny Chair
Posted on Monday 3rd October 2022
A move to make eligibility to hearing aids fairer for everyone in Staffordshire, has been welcomed by the county’s health scrutiny chair.
The newly formed Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board (ICB) agreed to overturn previous rules which meant people with mild hearing loss in the north of the county didn’t qualify for hearing aids.
Cllr Jeremy Pert, Chair of Staffordshire Health & Care Overview & Scrutiny Committee, welcomed the news after years of campaigning by the committee.
Jeremy said:
This is really great news for Staffordshire residents and is something that we have been campaigning hard to get for some time.
It is important to us that everyone in Staffordshire has fair and equal access to treatments and this decision means hearing aids will be available to all, rather than just some people with mild hearing loss.”
The ICB, which replaced the Clinical Commissioning Groups in July, will now develop plans for the implementation of the change to a number of policies. These will be discussed in more detail at the next meeting of the scrutiny committee.