How well are newborn hearing screening services working?
In each country of the UK the newborn hearing screening service is expected to meet a set of Quality Standards that records how many babies are tested, how many are referred to audiology for diagnostic testing and how many babies are identified as deaf following screening. In England, a team of people carry out Quality Assurance visits to each screening service to assess the standard of service in screening, as well as audiology, education and social care services for deaf children under three years of age. These visits are carried out every 18 months, or sooner if particular problems are highlighted. The Quality Assurance teams work is overseen by the Quality Assurance Board on which the NDCS has a seat. The second round of Quality Assurance visits began in 2008 and summaries of each site visit report are available to download here. The newborn hearing screening programmes in England and Wales also publish an annual report that can be downloaded from their websites (links below).
