CCG funded Audiology-led Secondary Care Earwax Removal Service

This is the second episode of our mini-series looking at the UK’s earwax crises.

Across 4 episodes you’ll hear from specialists who have come up with innovative ways of treating patients. 

In this episode, Julia who is the Head of Audiology for Signia, speaks to Mark Newman, Head of Audiology at the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Trust. Mark has managed to form an agreement with his CCG to fund their wax management through reimbursement, allowing his trust to have a full Audiology-lead wax care pathway. 

Got a question for Mark? Email him [e-mail]

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For more information about Signia UK and Ireland, visit: https://www.signia-pro.com/en-gb

Sounding it Out by Signia, is produced by Annie Day from Fresh Air Production.

 

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Julia: Hello and welcome back to Sounding it Out, a podcast dedicated to audiology, brought to you by Signia UK and Ireland. I'm Julia van Huyssteen, your host and Head of Audiology at Signia. This is the second episode of the miniseries about the wax management crisis we are facing here in the UK. As we discussed in the last episode, the situation started to deteriorate in 2019 when the British Medical Association decided it would no longer be considered part of the core services GPs were obliged to provide. It's created a postcode lottery for patients suffering from ear wax, the RNID, or Royal National Institute for Deaf People are concerned that the situation is risking people's hearing health with hearing loss, earache, tinnitus, and dizziness as some of the symptoms. In the last episode, I spoke to Frankie Oliver, audiology advisor at RNID about their worries.

[00:01:06] Franki: I don't think we can really overstate the risks that people compose when, they are forced to try and remove wax themselves. People are being forced to do this because private removal is either inaccessible or too expensive or they're just not able to access any care on the NHS . So people are using dangerous methods to try and remove wax, and then this is posing your risk to the really delicate anatomy of the middle ear and therefore posing a risk to someone's hearing.

[00:01:34] Julia: If you missed the conversation, you can go back and listen for free. In this mini-series we're speaking to people in the profession who have come up with some innovative solutions. I'm going to be joined by people who have found new and inventive ways of tackling the problem in their trusts and we will draw on that expertise.
My first guest is Mark Newman, who is the Head of Audiology at the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Trust. Hello, Mark. 

[00:02:06] Mark: Hello, Julia, and thank you for asking me along, 

[00:02:09] Julia: Mark, you've taken a really fresh approach to tackling earwax management in your trust, can you explain what you've done and why it was needed please?

[00:02:18] Mark: As with a lot of audiology departments, we were very frustrated at seeing our patients come through the door for our GP direct access appointments, and also seeing our existing patients where they'd have problems with their hearing aids and we would find wax in the ears and also a lot of our direct access patients are being triaged over the phone by the GPs having a telephone appointment, them being sent through to us with, not even looking in the year. It's always been frustrating thing for us as caring clinicians trying to provide good care for our patients, having to just stop the appointment and send them back to the GP knowing full well, but the services weren't really there to help them.
We found that between about 12 and 14% of our patients, although this could vary, were coming in with wax at one point or other. The problem is, as change takes a long time within the NHS , but I was very determined to see this one through seeing these patients in my clinics, I could share with their frustration as to how long this whole process took, and it just wasn't very satisfactory for me as a clinician trying to provide care as well.
So what I managed to do was actually negotiate a audiology led wax removal clinic, with a full blessing of the ICBs as they are now, or the CCGs as they were then which was, meant we had a fully funded audiology led wax removal clinic. 

[00:03:40] Julia: Wow. So my next question then is, of course, going to be how you managed to get this agreement with your CCG, how did you go about conversations and what arguments that you used to justify the cost?

[00:03:51] Mark: I was quite lucky because I've only been in this department about four years, but we're doin