Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has undertaken to ensure that health services such as access to continuing healthcare plans are available to people with hearing impairments or profound deafness.

It is the responsibility of local providers and commissioners of NHS services to make the reasonable adjustments required by the Equality Act 2010 to ensure that disabled people, including those with hearing impairments, are not placed at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled people. Additionally, under the NHS Constitution, National Health Service organisations in England are required to provide high quality comprehensive services, based on clinical need, which do not discriminate between patients on the basis of disability, including hearing impairments.

NHS Continuing Healthcare is a package of care that is arranged and funded solely by the NHS. It is provided when an individual aged 18 or over has been found to have a ‘primary health need’ as set out in the National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care.