NHS Barnsley Clinical Commissioning Group has introduced personal hearing amplifiers into GP surgeries to improve communication. These small bits of simple kit are now readily available for use by anyone attending their doctors who may have hearing loss.

NHS Barnsley CCG has been working with Healthwatch Barnsley and local people who are Deaf or have some hearing loss, to identify some of the challenges they face when going for a GP or nurse appointment.

In addition to the amplifiers, the Barnsley sensory impairment services team, run by South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, has provided training to GP practice staff across the borough in how to safely support both sight-impaired and hearing-impaired individuals during their surgery visits. 

Dr Nick Balac of NHS Barnsley CCG said: “GP surgeries are busy environments and can be quite noisy, with telephones and conversations from multiple directions. People with a hearing impairment can sometimes find holding conversations in this environment very challenging.

We’ve had lots of really valuable feedback  and ideas from people about some of these challenges and we hope that by providing these new bits of kit, as well as the training staff have had, it will vastly improve their experience.”

The personal hearing amplifiers are very easy to use, are small and portable, easily transportable from reception areas to consulting rooms. They enable the user to wear headsets which crucially cut out other sounds. People can also adjust the volume to their personal preference.