"119 years old before I get a hearing aid"

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 10th Oct 2005

There is massive frustration amongst residents with hearing difficulties about the long delays involved in getting digital hearing aids at the local hospital (the West Middlesex). When the NHS embarked on the 'roll out' of digital hearing aids, the West Middlesex was one of the last hospitals to be included in the programme. Since then, chronic staffing problems have meant that local people are waiting long periods before being seen.

One man, a respected and well known local optician, has been told that he is 750th on a waiting list for an NHS digital hearing aid, at the rate at which the list is being cleared - 7 places in 5 months - he will be 119 years old before he qualifies!!!

Vincent Cable, Lib Dem MP for Twickenham, who has taken up the issue with the hospital, said that he had first campaigned, in Parliament, on the availability of digital hearing aids on the NHS five years ago and was told by Ministers that the programme would be completed long before now:

"For some reason the West Middlesex were very slow to anticipate a new NHS initiative which is important for the quality of life of thousands of people with failing hearing. Staff were not recruited and the hospital cannot now handle the demand.

"This is simply bad planning since there were clear professional and political signals five years ago that this programme was on the way. In the meantime, local NHS patients have to put up with impaired hearing or fork out hundreds of pounds to have the equipment fitted privately."