Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to issue guidance to ICBs on providing equality of access to auditory verbal therapy for deaf babies and young children.

Audiology services are locally commissioned, and the responsibility for meeting the needs of non-hearing children lies with local National Health Service commissioners. It is important that local commissioners have the discretion to decide how best to meet the needs of their local population, and we are giving systems greater control and flexibility over how funding is deployed to support this.

We expect local commissioning to be informed by the best available evidence, relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines, and guidance issued by NHS England. In 2019, NHS England, with input from the National Deaf Children’s Society, produced a guide for commissioners and health and local authority providers which supports non-hearing children and young people. This is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/what-works-chswg-guide.pdf

The Government is committed to breaking down barriers to opportunities and ensuring that every child, including children with hearing loss, has the best start in life. I met with Auditory Verbal UK and heard their views about the potential benefits of guidance on auditory verbal therapy, which I agreed to consider.