- Aim: To change established attitudes and behaviour in society towards hearing loss and the use of hearing aids.
- Impact: The advertising agency M&C Saatchi has been working
with us (on a pro bono basis) to produce a major attitude and awareness
campaign to be launched at the end of 2009.
We promoted our telephone hearing check at all the major political party conferences and at events run in partnership with local councils and private companies. Information about the check was also widely circulated to the general public and over 1,400 checks were carried out by trained staff and volunteers using handheld checkers at a range of events, from biomedical conferences to health exhibitions. We sent 500 hearing check packs (on request) to employers, and postcards and posters to 200 libraries. We promoted hearing health messages through the Royal British Legion, British Association of Shooting and Conservation, and Age Concern leading to greater levels of awareness amongst key audiences at risk of hearing loss.
- Aim: To continue our campaign to ensure NHS waiting times for patients needing hearing aids are reduced.
- Impact: We successfully lobbied the Department of Health
to introduce the maximum 18-week waiting time target in England for audiology
services. By March 2009, 99% of people given hearing aids that month had
waited fewer than 18 weeks to receive a hearing aid which has improved
their ability to communicate and quality of life.
See our impact in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
- Aim: To improve the quality of and access to audiology services.
- Impact: We continue to work on the Department of Health's
Audiology Advisory Board to develop quality standards and guidance for
the NHS in England. We also advise those responsible for purchasing hearing
aids for the NHS, aiming to ensure that technology continues to improve
and that users' needs are fully met.
See our impact in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
- Aim: To ensure that cochlear implants are routinely available to adults and children who could benefit from them – and that those who could gain substantial additional benefit from an implant in each ear are offered two.
- Impact: Thanks to the lobbying of RNID, NDCS and other
charities, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)
introduced new guidance in January 2009. Cochlear implants in both ears
are now recommended for two groups of people who where previously excluded
from routinely being funded on the NHS: adults with severe to profound
deafness who are blind or have other disabilities that affect their spatial
awareness; and all children with severe to profound deafness who don't
get enough benefit from hearing aids.
We also produced groundbreaking research with the Ear Foundation to support our case and provide guidance to schools to ensure that children with cochlear implants can get the best support at school and don't miss out on the benefits of their implants.
- Aim: To make safer listening a widely understood public health issue.
- Impact: By speaking to festival-goers at six of the UK's
biggest music festivals, including Glastonbury and Reading, we encouraged
more than 1,000 people to pledge to look after their hearing and received
3,700 responses to a questionnaire that encouraged music-lovers to think
about their hearing. We recruited 14 celebrity supporters to promote our
messages to their fans through video interviews, the internet and other
media and distributed 500 posters promoting safe listening messages at
Luminar-owned nightclubs.
Our Don't Lose the Music campaign website, which helps make people aware of the dangers of excessive noise, received over 50,000 visitors, compared with a target of 80,000. However, we smashed our media target getting coverage. We had a large amount of national coverage in papers including the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail; we did dozens of radio interviews and appeared on The One Show and Embarrassing Teenage Bodies all of which ensured we raised awareness of the issue.
- Aim: To encourage people to take action to prevent damage to their hearing.
- Impact: We gave out more than 15,000 protective earplugs at festivals, club nights and health exhibitions to encourage music lovers to be aware of the dangers of loud noise and take action in future to prevent hearing damage.
- Aim: To create opportunities for people to be more actively involved in our work.
- Impact: We work with volunteers to deliver community-based
services, including outreach information and Hear
to Help, the service that helps clients make the most of their hearing
aids. Most of our volunteers have a hearing loss themselves and are happy
to share their experiences and offer advice to clients, carers and professionals.
RNID Campaigns Network Members participated in the first ever meetings in the European Parliament to use a state-of-the-art infrared system that assists hearing aid wearers. They successfully lobbied the Parliament to install this system in its visitor centre and iconic debating chamber.
We appointed a Head of Volunteering Development who has simplified our recruitment process to make us more accessible to potential volunteers. We have put good practice into action, including regularly thanking our volunteers and acknowledging their contribution, which is helping to increase volunteer numbers and commitment.
- Aim: To support our members in campaigning for improved access to lipreading classes.
- Impact: We encouraged people to tell education providers and central and local government about the importance of lipreading classes. This was done to great effect in Essex. Essex County Council was charging £186 for a 60-hour course (among the highest fees in the country) for classes that used to be free. Learners themselves, supported by RNID, spearheaded a campaign after classes started to close. As a direct result, the council agreed to pay the fees of all existing lipreading students and make free classes available to new learners.