Correspondence

Letter from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to Dr Camilla Kingdon

Published 10 November 2025

Applies to England

Dear Dr Kingdon,

I would like to thank you for chairing the independent review of children’s hearing services and for the report that you have prepared. The report shines a light on significant failures in children’s hearing services and in the programme set out to improve these services. This failure is unacceptable. The impact of missed and incorrect diagnosis for these babies and children can be lifelong.

As a priority, I have asked NHS England to work to address issues with the Paediatric Hearing Services Improvement Programme. It is vital we work at pace to minimise the potential harm to babies and children from these service failures.

NHS England is already taking action in many of the areas you have identified, including considering ways we can improve oversight of the audiology profession specifically to ensure training routes and professional development are up to scratch, while also making sure that governance is consistent across the health system. NHS England is actively working with the National Deaf Children’s Society to produce improved communications to support families with deaf children and to review training programmes completed by audiologists.

In the last 12 months, reviews of diagnostic traces have increased from 32% to 54% and recalls from 41% to 65%. NHS England has made significant progress and there has been sustained activity to identify services in need of improvement in the 140 paediatric audiology services across the country.

The government has also: 

• confirmed over £6 billion additional capital investment over 5 years for diagnostic, elective and urgent care capacity - which could be used to fund equipment and facilities for paediatric audiology services
• confirmed funding for expanded testing capacity through community diagnostic centres with ‘straight to test’ pathways - these are a one stop service where paediatric patients can receive hearing tests, enabling diagnosis in one visit

But there is far more to do. In the longer term, I am committed to making sure we have the right NHS staff in the right places with the right skills through our forthcoming 10 Year Workforce Plan and bringing NHS England into the department to end the communication failures that allowed this scandal to develop. Our elective reform plan commits to transforming and expanding diagnostic services across the board to speed up waiting times for tests and through our 10 Year Health Plan, we are shifting more care to the community via services like community diagnostic centres which host audiology testing. After over a decade of being starved of capital funding, our record investment into the NHS is making sure it has the cutting-edge facilities and equipment needed to bring it into the 21st century. But I know there is much more we still need to do.

We will publish a full and considered response to all of the recommendations made by the review as soon as possible.

I would like to assure you that we fully understand the importance of getting it right for children’s hearing services and for other important services that do not receive the attention they deserve. I am determined to make sure this never happens again.

The Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care