As one who is new to the audiology world you may be wondering why so many people in the UK choose to go to private audiology clinics rather than use the NHS. There are several reasons. The first, and the one that you will usually hear especially from parents of children with hearing disabilities, is that as much as they would like to use the NHS the wait times are just not feasible. Many times parents have to wait for months on end for their turn to see an audiologist, and all the while their child’s hearing is getting worse.
Another reason you may hear is that people prefer private audiologists because they are able to take their time to diagnose and help cope with the problem. While discovering that one has a hearing deficiency doesn’t take very long, it can take a while to understand the root cause of the problem and it also takes a long time to learn how best to cope. Private audiologists are able to dedicate the required time. While am NHS practitioner may mean well, he or she just doesn’t have hours to spend with you on each visit – they have a long list of patients that they have to see within a certain amount of time.
While private audiologists cost money they are certainly worth it. The best are highly trained – they specialize only in matters of hearing loss and they invest in the necessary equipment so that you can get everything that you need within their practice. Clinics will have several audiologists working at once so you don’t have to worry about waiting long to be seen by the doctor.
One of the best is Cheary – they run an excellent in London and have a wide range of tests available. You can find out more on http://www.chears.co.uk/.