Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of Auditory Verbal therapy as an early intervention for deaf children under five years old.

No recent assessment has been made. ‘Commissioning Services for People with Hearing Loss: A framework for clinical commissioning groups’ was published in July 2016. This framework supports former clinical commissioning groups and from July 2022, integrated care boards in England to maximise value for local populations and provide consistent, high quality and integrated care. It also addresses inequalities in access and outcomes between hearing services.