March 28, 2024

Hearing aids: is going private really better than the NHS? – The Guardian

When Alan Wright* decided to take the plunge and spend £2,800 on new hearing aids, he thought he was buying a significant upgrade on his old NHS-provided models.

The 70-year-old, who had largely given up going to the theatre and other similar activities due to being quite deaf in one ear, hoped that by spending the money he would be able to start going out again.

But instead of a new freedom, he and his wife Angela say they…….

When Alan Wright* decided to take the plunge and spend £2,800 on new hearing aids, he thought he was buying a significant upgrade on his old NHS-provided models.

The 70-year-old, who had largely given up going to the theatre and other similar activities due to being quite deaf in one ear, hoped that by spending the money he would be able to start going out again.

But instead of a new freedom, he and his wife Angela say they have endured 18 months of frustration as the hearing aids spent more time at the Specsavers hearing centre in Solihull than in his ears. In the end the couple became so disillusioned with the Widex aids that they demanded their money back.

“It was a lot of money but we thought it would be worth it to improve his quality of life,” says Angela. “After 18 months of repeatedly having to return the aids, which would only work for a short time, he has now gone back to using his NHS version. We now wish we had saved our money.”

The couple may have just been unlucky and, after Guardian Money intervened, Specsavers refunded the couple in full. It repeated its view that neither it, nor the manufacturer, could find any problems with Wright’s hearing aids.

However, his case, and others like it, raise important questions about when and if consumers should use one of the growing number of private firms that dominate the private hearing aid sector, or stick with the NHS. The dilemma is exacerbated by the fact that consumers face a bewildering range of aids to improve hearing – and a huge range of prices.

The consumer group Which?, one of the few bodies that has investigated this area and come up with an excellent guide, found in 2018 that the average amount spent on a pair of hearing aids was £2,613. It is not uncommon for someone to spend £5,000 on the most technically advanced models, which may only last three to five years.

Users who are having their first aid fitted should not expect it to work perfectly immediately. Photograph: Westend61 GmbH/Alamy

When Which? asked its readers to rate their private hearing aid purchases, the highest score of 87% was awarded by those who had used an independent retailer. Boots Hearingcare was rated the best of the big-name firms with a score of 79%, while Amplifon and Specsavers scored 74% and 71% respectively. Scrivens was lowest at 62%.

Francesca Oliver, audiology specialist at the charity Action on Hearing Loss (formerly …….

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/oct/12/hearing-aids-private-nhs-models