Audiology Services Modernisation Project Board
The Audiology Services Modernisation Project Board was established in July 2003 to oversee the overall modernisation plan.
The remit of Project Board was to:
- Establish aims and objectives for the Project
- Oversee the development of a modernisation plan that addresses those aims and objectives (including identification of key priorities and milestones)
- Approve allocation of modernisation funding
- Monitor implementation of plan.
The membership of the Audiology Services Modernisation Project Board is shown below
Audiology Services Modernisation Project Board membership| Name | Representing |
|---|
Angela Bonomy Project Manager, Audiology Service Modernisation | Scottish Executive Health Department |
Dr David Breen Consultant in Public Health Medicine | NHS Dumfries and Galloway |
Susan Groom Associate General Manager, Surgery Division | NHS Greater Glasgow |
Gordon McHardy Head of Service, Audiology | NHS Grampian |
Nicola Scammell - Secretariat Policy Officer | Scottish Executive Health Department |
Sylvia Shearer Policy Analyst/Branch Head | Scottish Executive Health Department |
Helen Strachan Service Manager, Surgical Specialities | NHS Grampian |
Professor Tony Wells - Chair Chief Executive | NHS Tayside |
Delia Henry Director | Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) Scotland |
David Willis Audiology Services Manager | NHS Tayside |
The Project Board aimed to ensure the resources were available to allow the routine issue of digital hearing aids and support where they are the most clinically effective option and to provide for a step change improvement in the quality of hearing aid services delivered by NHSScotland - with a consistent level of provision across NHS Boards. The ultimate outcome of this improvement should be that NHS patients in Scotland receive a hearing aid with features that best overcome the consequences of their impairment and that the fitting and associated follow up provides effective rehabilitation.
The objectives of the Project Board to achieve by the end of the Project in March 2007 were:
- All main centres to have the capability and capacity to deal with increased paediatric demand arising from the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening ( UNHS) programme.
- All main centres to have the capability to routinely use real-ear measurement equipment in the fitting of all hearing aids.
- All main centres to have the capability to fit advanced analogue and fully digital hearing aids (including those with amplitude compression, directional microphones and feedback compression).
- All NHS Boards to have procedures in place for all patients to be reviewed between 3 and 6 weeks - using a recognised outcome measurement tool.
- All NHS Boards to have procedures/staffing in place to ensure waiting times from referral to assessment will not exceed 20 weeks and from assessment to fitting will not exceed 6 weeks.
- All main centres to have computerised databases capable of integrating test results, patient information and hearing aid provision.
- All NHS Boards to have credible action plans that address those recommendations in the Public Health Institute of Scotland ( PHIS) Needs Assessment Report on NHS Audiology Services in Scotland that relate to hearing aid services.
- All NHS Boards to have produced at least one Quarterly hearing aid services report, in a centrally agreed common report format, (and to have made arrangements to produce ongoing Quarterly reports), that record the age of all patients assessed, their hearing impairment and the hearing aid technology fitted, and also the following information on adult patients (linked to HDL (2001) 19).
- All centres to have documented local policies and protocols on adult hearing aid fitting covering the following:
The content of assessment and review sessions and the time to be allocated to each
The self report questionnaire to be used at initial assessment sessions and at review sessions
The rationales to be used when fitting hearing aids and when adjusting maximum power output
The procedures to be followed when fine tuning hearing aids at fitting and at review
The content of instruction provided to patients following fitting of a hearing aid
The criteria for the development of Individual Management Plans