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NHS hearing tests

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I am wondering if my recent experience is typical of the NHS?

About 2 weeks ago I went for a follow up hearing test after having had an NHS hearing test in December (although this was contracted out to Specsavers) but they had no record of my previous test or the fact that I had been issued with a NHS hearing aid. We went ahead with the test and the woman running the test was lovely but when I came out the booth and said okay I have some questions she told me I needed to wait to ask the questions to the who I would be contacted about in a weeks time to book the ENT appointment (I have not yet been contacted to book an appointment). She also wouldn’t show me my and I would like to see it as I’m pretty certain my hearing has dropped since December and considering my hearing was normal in July last year I’m quite anxious about it dropping more. Anyway all that is to say does it always work like this with NHS appointments?

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Not in my experience of over 25 years. The various audiologists I’ve seen have been open to showing me my , discussing any queries and getting me a printout. I generally find that you need to ask, directly, for things like this.

That said, I’ve had other issues - one (senior) audiologist took the view that all my hearing aids needed were the automatic program since they were intelligent enough to work out the best settings. I went back a week later with some minor repair and innocently said I thought my previous settings and programs hadn’t been saved on my new . The tech was only too happy to help…

I have now had the results of this test and have updated my on here. It does show that my hearing between 1kHz and 4kHz have dropped in both ears, not to anything more than a mild loss but I feel like I am noticing a difference. I have also had an appointment where the doctor was very happy to talk to me about the results but he couldn’t provide any comparison to my previous audiogram because he also had no record of it? I am now wondering if I go back to the place where I had my original test if they will have an updated copy of the test results. I was unable to have a print out of my results and there is absolutely no reference to any of these appointments in my NHS app. I am worried that when I return to the Specsavers that they will not want to change my settings on my hearing aid because the test was not conducted by them, even though it has all been done through the NHS? Today I have also had a scan done, I was referred by the ENT, because he could see no issues with my eardrum but my hearing loss is conductive. I am not sure what they are looking for with this CT scan or what the possible outcomes are? I would really appreciate some advice!

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This was all I got from the appointment. I was told my ear drum was moving as expected so the problem must be behind it? I’ve not had any other testing done, until I hear back from my this is all I know. Would you have expected that there be more investigation done first?

Your loss appears to be conductive in the left ear, though it would’ve been good if they had done more bone conduction thresholds at lower frequencies to see whether there was also a conductive overlay there. I can see why they might order a scan. Did they do acoustic reflex testing?

I don’t think so… I have booked another appointment for a hearing test, I have not been very happy so far with the service or the breadth of testing done. Hopefully I can start to get some answers with this new audiologist!

In reply to @Hearing_Potential

I have now been told that there is evidence of otosclerosis on my san, and I have just had a new hearing test done, the results have been updated on my profile . I felt like I had quite a big change in my hearing over the summer and the audiogram seems to suggest I was right. I have lost quite a lot in my right ear (at least it feels that way, not sure if clinically it would be considered a lot) and have now been fitted with a hearing aid in my right ear as well. I am now waiting to be seen by an ear specialist at my local hospital, I have a feeling it will be quite a while until I am seen by this specialist, considering it took 3 months to hear back about my CT scan. I am now finding that the right ear is whistling when I wear my headphones over my hearing aids to watch TV on my phone, which is quite annoying but using the bluetooth feature of my hearing aids is not good quality, and I don't want to just turn up the volume on my headphones as I am worried about damaging my hearing further!

See if you can find the audio balance controls in your phone to give your right ear a boost rather than turning up the volume for both ears at the same time. Bluetooth audio connections via and are relatively poor quality and you'd notice this with a conductive hearing loss.

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