Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he has taken in respect of paediatric audiology services which do not meet the standards set out in the quality assurance newborn hearing screening programme.

Between September 2012 and March 2013 the NHS Newborn Hearing Screening Programme (NHSP) provided each individual hearing screening programme with an individual detailed quality assurance (QA) report and action plan. These QA reports are available directly from the screening programmes or via the NHSP website at

http://hearing.screening.nhs.uk/qualityassurance

It is up to local NHS paediatric services as to how they implement these action plans.