NHS Hearing Aids

National Health Service (NHS) also offers services to treat the hearing loss problems. When you decide to visit NHS for your hearing aids requirement, usually it is a good idea to book an appointment, well in advance. You have to do some preparation like jotting down all the medications you're going through, including any vitamins and supplements, to help your audiologist to perform your tests, and prescribe you the required action. Along with this, if you have the details of your hearing problem like the symptoms, severity of the problem etc., it will be of great help. You may consider taking a person along with you who has good knowledge about your problem, if you are visiting for the first time or your problem is so severe that you may not be completely able to understand what the audiologist is speaking.

NHS Hearing Aids

When you visit NHS, Ensure that you completely understand what the audiologist is speaking. If you have any difficulty in understanding their speech, you can ask them to write it down or explain it in BSL. Repeating what you heard, will help the audiologist to ensure that you got his speech correctly. They know your problem and their responsibility is to help you. So, do not hesitate to ask them to repeat or write down.

At NHS, you can get the tests done by the ENT specialist. For very old people usually an audiologist will carry out the tests. Along with these the health centers or hospitals of NHS, in your town, have professional audiology staff. They can also perform the tests for you.

If you are prescribed to wear hearing aids, both analog and digital ones are available with NHS. Mostly these are classified as follows:

1. 'Behind The Ear(BTE)' hearing ai ds: These consist of an ear mold fitting in the ear and a tubing that occupies the space behind the ear.
2. 'Body worn' hearing aids: These also consist of an ear mold fitting in the ear and casing that contains the microphone. The casing can be held in the hand or it can be held in the pocket or in the clothes.
3. Bone conduction hearing aids: This is for the people who have difficulty to wear a normal type of hearing aid. They amplify the sound and transmit the sound to ear canal, through the bone in the skull. The underlying process is called 'air conduction'
4. Bone anchored hearing aids(BAHA): These devices work on the principle of bone conduction. These are permanently implanted, surgically, in the ear. The sound is transmitted directly through the bone bypassing the external auditory canal and middle ear.
5. Contralateral routing of Signals (CROS) and BiCROS hearing aids: These devices are used only for people who have hearing problems in one ear. They tra nsmit the sound from the side of the affected ear to the normal ear.

As compared to private suppliers, NHS hearing aids do not offer 'In the ear(ITE)', 'In the canal(ITC)' or 'completely in the canal(CIC)' hearing aids. If you would like to have any of these types, you should visit other commercial outlets.

When you are prescribed with hearing aids, the specialists at NHS will take an impression of your ear mold, and the hearing aids will be custom manufactured for you. Usually it takes few weeks before you get the device. If you are going for 'open ear fitting', which are readily available, NHS can provide them to you, after all your routine tests are completed. The devices will be fine-tuned as per your hearing requirements and the details about usage and aftercare will be provided to you. You are encouraged to re-visit NHS after two months, after taking appointment. NHS will not charge you for the hearing aids and the batteries. However, if you lose them or they are dama ged accidentally, you need to pay for servicing the damaged ones or for getting new hearing aids.