- Aim: To provide high-quality information and aftercare services for people who wear hearing aids.
- Impact: We created our community-based Hear
to Help projects, which provide simple maintenance, support and advice
to new hearing aid wearers, and to the families and carers of existing
wearers. By enabling people to make better use of their aids, Hear to
Help leads to greater independence and reduces the risk of isolation.
It also plays a part in rehabilitation, befriending and equipment assessment.
We have 10 Hear to Help projects around the UK, reaching 20,000 people.
We have encouraged health professionals to recognise the value of Hear
to Help in relieving the strain on 'mainstream' audiology services by
establishing new contracts and funding for Hear to Help from four Primary
Care Trusts in England.
See our impact in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
- 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 continue to build relationships with corporate partners for fundraising purposes.
- Impact: In September 2008, RNID was chosen as The
Co-operative Charity of the year for 2009. The partnership was launched
nationally in January, with regional launches taking place across the
UK at over 160 Co-operative Food stores. Since then, employees from across
The Co-operative have been aiming to raise £2m for our Hear
to Help projects, which support and provide information to people
with hearing aids. Their fundraising will also help us to make improvements
to a number of our Care Services projects. Through the partnership we
have benefited from a cause-related marketing campaign with Procter &
Gamble and other suppliers have supported RNID at corporate balls and
golf days. The Co-operative has supported our Hearing Check campaign and
raised awareness about deafness and hearing loss to the public by promoting
the check in-store and to its 120,000 employees.
See our impact in Scotland.
- Aim: To ensure that we continue to receive valuable support from our members and to enable them to get the most from their membership.
- Impact: 369 members upgraded their membership to Life Membership status, creating extra revenue for RNID and allowing members to enjoy a range of new, extra benefits. We created 'Your say', a members-only part of our website where members can share information and experiences relating to deafness and hearing loss and published The Facts about Hearing Aids, a clear, accessible, 'one-stop' publication, free to members.