Mark Todd

Two new hearing clinics are to be set up in Derbyshire following a public meeting where residents criticised changes to the service.

From October, hearing services across the county were altered in order to cut waiting times for audiology appointments.

The number of clinics treating the 10,000 people in the county with hearing problems increased from 17 to 23. These clinics provided assessments, hearing aid fittings and advice.

But London Road Community Hospital in Derby stopped accepting people from across the county and limited its service to patients registered with a city GP. Clinics at hospitals in Sheffield, Nottingham and Burton were also closed to Derbyshire patients.

However, no new audiology clinics were set up in South Derbyshire leaving the district with just one centre - in Swadlincote

Mark wrote to Derbyshire Primary Care Trust to complain that South Derbyshire had lost out. Many of his constituents used the Derby hospital and were now forced to travel to Swadlincote.
 
On Monday (Jan 11th), a sub-group from Derbyshire County Council's Adult Health and Care Improvement and Scrutiny Committee held a public meeting in Swadlincote attended by representatives from the Primary Care Trust as well as Mark.
 
During the meeting, patients voiced their anger that the PCT’s suppliers only provided one full service - in Swadlincote. It was pointed out that Swadlincote was very hard to access by public transport from communities such as Willington, Repton, Hilton and Etwall.

 In addition the quality of service provided in Swadlincote was criticised.
 
The PCT revealed at the meeting that two clinics would now be set up in  the  Hilton  area  and Derby plus staff at the Swadlincote clinic have been replaced.
 
Mark will now pursue this and get more details of these clinics.
 
He said: "This meeting reinforced what I have been saying for the last three months. It has been most disappointing that little progress has been made in correcting obvious service faults. We hear that the contractor in Swadlincote has removed their entire team working there, suggesting that this was going badly wrong. The difficulties some people have with reaching Swadlincote will now be addressed with a new centre in the Hilton area and one in Derby. Frankly this should have happened in the first place and this has been an incompetent performance by the Primary Care Trust. They failed to consult with users and voluntary groups. They failed to listen once problems were reported. They must now move fast to repair the damage. This is a vital service for those with hearing difficulties. This clumsy performance has damaged their interests.”