Deafblindness: Emerging Technologies

Lord Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for the question and pay tribute to his ongoing work in this space. Supporting deaf children through the use of audiological equipment involves a range of government agencies, including the NHS, schools and local authorities’ social care teams. If a child is deaf, NHS audiology services work with multidisciplinary teams, which include teachers for the deaf, paediatricians, speech and language therapists, and cochlear implant teams, as well as the parents and guardians, and between them they agree individual management plans. Children who use audiological equipment based on this plan should of course be offered regular appointments with their audiology team to check their hearing and ears and to ensure that their audiological equipment is working and adjusted as necessary.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister is right in recognising that smaller companies are developing technologies for the deafblind, without using the internet, combining spectacles and hearing aids. The important point is that, when these technologies reach maturity, they are available to people who are deafblind. Digital technologies for the deaf, for instance, are currently not available on the NHS and are quite expensive on the private market. We must make sure they are available on the NHS when these technologies mature.

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I suppose the structural problem overall is that those who find themselves disabled, with whatever disability, are in a very small group, and the smaller the group, the more difficult it is for manufacturers of equipment to provide for them in a commercially viable way. The Government have a number of levers they can pull in this space: first, by commissioning research directly; secondly, by the public sector procurement programme—we spend on average £1.5 billion every year on procuring ATech; and, finally, by working with partner organisations, such as UKRI and Innovate UK, to seed and fund emerging technology in the ATech space.