Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will consider mandating NHS England to ensure that all children’s audiology services both undertake the Improving Quality In Physiological Services process and sign waivers of confidentiality so that all information about the quality of children’s audiology services is available to families of deaf children.

We are advised by NHS England that the Improving Quality in Physiological Services programme, run jointly by the United Kingdom of Accreditation Service (UKAS) and the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), is raising the profile of accreditation and quality assurance schemes for physiological diagnostic services. A mapping exercise is underway to identify those services which are accredited or working towards accreditation which is an integral improvement step on the pathway to full accreditation as a mark of quality. To date audiology services are making good progress towards accreditation.

Commissioning of accredited services is considered good practice and should be encouraged. UKAS and RCP are supporting the NHS England business objective to increase the use of accreditation. Information about those services which have achieved accreditation is publicly available on the UKAS website.

All hospital providers of audiology services are registered with the Care Quality Commission and information on their monitoring and inspections is freely available online. Local authorities and clinical commissioning groups should also be providing details of services for deaf children as part of their published offer under the new statutory framework for special educational needs and disability.