Jim Shannon – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2014-06-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much the NHS spent on hearing aids in each of the last five years.
Norman Lamb
Information on National Health Service expenditure on hearing aids is not collected centrally. However, reference costs, which are the unit costs to NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts of providing defined services in a given financial year to NHS patients, provide some information which is shown in the following table.
Estimated cost to NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts of hearing aid provision, 2008-09 to 2012-13, £ million
|
Year |
Hearing aid costs |
Associated hearing aid costs |
Cochlear implants and bone anchored hearing aids |
|
2008-09 |
60.7 |
89.0 |
18.7 |
|
2009-10 |
57.7 |
96.0 |
17.7 |
|
2010-11 |
55.8 |
103.2 |
19.2 |
|
2011-12 |
62.1 |
118.5 |
26.6 |
|
2012-13 |
62.7 |
127.6 |
25.8 |
Source: Reference Costs, Department of Health
Notes:
1. Hearing aid costs are the actual costs of the hearing aids excluding other associated costs.
2. Associated hearing aid costs include assessment, fitting, follow-up and aftercare.
3. Reference costs are submitted on a fully absorbed basis, which means that all the costs of running the organisation are included in the return except where their exclusion is permitted.
4. Some relevant costs may be excluded. For example, maintenance and reprogramming costs for cochlear implants and bone anchored hearing aid costs were excluded from reference costs for these years.
5. The supply and fitting of hearing aids is also commissioned from the independent sector, and this expenditure is not reflected in the table.
6. 2012-13 is the latest year for which reference costs data are available.
