A resource for everyone
2ears2hear is a resource for everyone with an interest in bilateral cochlear implants and the importance of securing NHS funding.
STOP PRESS - Final obstacle removed in way of NICE bilateral CI guidance
The final potential obstacle in the way of the NICE recommendations in favour of bilateral CIs in children becoming NHS guidance has been removed. The recommendations could still have been challenged by judicial review by the two dissenting NHS specialised commissioning groups (SCGs). Amazingly, despite losing an appeal against the NICE recommendations, South Central and Yorkshire and Humber SCGs pressed ahead to try to launch a judicial review.
In papers obtained by 2ears2hear under the Freedom of Information Act, we can reveal that they did indeed spend public funds on obtaining counsel’s opinion on the merits of a judicial review. This brings the total spent by the two SCGs on legal moves to try to block NICE’s recommendations to nearly £10,000. Wouldn’t it be nice if the many parents who have had to battle the NHS to get bilateral CIs for their children had the luxury of £10,000 to spend on solicitors!
This waste of public money came to an ignominious end when the two SCGs were told in writing by their counsel that a judicial review would be "imprudent" and the SCGs’ case was "not sufficient to meet the threshold required in a public law challenge." It was amazing that the SCGs ever thought it would be given the paucity of the argument they had put forward before the appeal panel. Unlike many of the consultees to the NICE appraisal, they did not forward any evidence of their own population’s experience of bilateral vs unilateral CIs but, instead, relied largely on ill-judged legal argument to try to block the recommendations on procedural grounds.
Cochlear implantation (CIs) is a vital technology providing access to sound for children and adults who are too deaf to benefit from hearing aids. But, unlike hearing aids, most NHS patients have been given just one cochlear implant (CI) despite the fact that all of us need two ears to hear fully.
The UK has fallen behind many other countries where two (bilateral) CIs – one for each ear – are routine, in recognition of the importance of two-sided (binaural) hearing. In England and Wales, the NICE appraisal now looks set to begin to close the gap between the UK and other countries.
In Scotland and Northern Ireland, the NHS has agreed to fund bilateral CIs for children who are deafened through meningitis but have not committed funding for other profoundly deaf children. However, that may change if Scotland and Northern Ireland adopt the NICE recommendations.
For all severely and profoundly deaf people, bilateral CIs are vital for the ability to localise where sound is coming from and for better understanding of speech in background noise. They are an important development in removing the barriers between deaf people and the hearing world. Binaural hearing is vital in all settings, whether educational, work or social, and when it comes to being able to tell the direction of a car horn or a warning shout, it can be the difference between life and death.