National management of UNHS in Scotland

NDCS Scotland campaigns to ensure that NHS audiology services are delivering for deaf children and their families in Scotland.

Unlike in England, there is no national programme for the delivery of UNHS. Rather, it is for individual NHS boards to manage their UNHS testing and follow-up support. 

Unsurprisingly, this is resulting in wide local variation in the delivery of this service, and to date, there is no national collection of data on the number of children diagnosed with a hearing loss via UNHS, nor of the levels of deafness identified, making it very difficult to track their progress.

NDCS Scotland is campaigning for a nationally coordinated UNHS programme in Scotland, and for the collection of data on all deaf children in Scotland.

Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (UNHS) tests were rolled out across Scotland in 2005 and are now available to all Scottish babies.

Babies under six weeks old are tested for hearing impairments, replacing the previous Infant Distraction Test, taken when babies were seven to eight months old. The result is earlier diagnosis of deafness with the aim of targeting support as soon as possible.

The implementation of testing prorgammes across all boards was supported by the Scottish UNHS Implementation Group, of which NDCS Scotland was a member.

.

• May 2009:  The lack of data on the number of deaf children diagnosed via UNHS is raised again at Holyrood as a result of an NDCS Scotland briefing to MSPs ahead of a debate on hearing screening in Scotland.  Read more >
• November 2008: Bill Butler MSP raises the lack of data from the NHS on the number of babies diagnosed with a hearing loss as a result of Newborn Hearing Screening in the Scottish Parliament, and the Cabinet Secretary agrees to raise this issue with NHS Board Chief Executives, whilst paying tribute to NDCS Scotland's work to collect data on deaf children living in Scotland.  Read the transcript of Bill Butler MSP's exchange with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing >    
• Read more >
  
• September 2008: NDCS Scotland launches the Pick a number campaign which asks the Scottish Government to collect data on the number of deaf children in Scotland identified via UNHS.
• October 2007: The Scottish Government published the results of an audit of audiology services in Scotland, which included a review of UNHS delivery. The audit team comment that given that UNHS is a universal population screen across Scotland, it seems inconsistent that: each service has its own screening protocol; there are no nationally agreed training packages for screening staff or screening manager; there is no central procurement of equipment/consumable (which would save money); there is no central development of screening information and no formalised method of sharing lessons from incidents; there is no central agreement of what ongoing quality assurance and audit is needed. The audit concludes that these all contrinute to inequities across the NHS Boards, and that national guidance is required for professionals delivering UNHS in Scotland to look towards, and that this should be coordinated by a national programme manager, with appropriate expert support.
• July 2007: A Scottish Executive-commissioned report on the implementation of UNHS in Scotland has been published. The report author, Dr. Jackie Grigor, previously consultant paediatrician (audiology) in NHS Lothian, states that UNHS cannot stand in isolation from follow-up audiology, diagnostic, early intervention and ongoing multi-agency support. This report was commissioned because NHS boards were finding it difficult to deliver UNHS in this context.

Write to your local MSP to ask them to put pressure on the Scottish Government to introduce national management of UNHS, with national standards and better data collection.

Contact campaigns.scotland@ndcs.org.uk where our campaigns team are ready to help you do this.

NDCS Scotland needs you!

• Have you received fantastic support from your local audiology team in the delivery of Newborn Hearing Screening on your child?
  Tell us about it – what makes the support they offer you so effective? 

• Or, are you frustrated at the service you have received? Weren't you provided with enough information about your child’s hearing loss or where to go for advice?
  Tell us – we need to know the scale of the problem.  

Case studies like these help NDCS to demonstrate to the government the case for action to review UNHS provision.

If you have any questions about this campaign in your area or if you would like to tell us about your experiences, please get in touch.

Email: campaigns.scotland@ndcs.org.uk

Your recent comments

There are currently no comments on this page.