01/01/1576

Deaf people used sign language to communicate.

01/01/1800

Before the electronic age people use ear trumpets to help them hear.

09/06/1911

Leo Bonn established the National Bureau for Promoting the General Welfare of the Deaf. The organisation would become the RNID.

01/01/1932

The first wearable bone conduction hearing aid is produced by Sonotone Corporation in the USA.

01/01/1943

In the 1940s limitations in telephone technology led to the development of a state-manufactured hearing aid in the UK – the Medresco aid.

15/12/1944

Parents set up a Society to improve access to and the quality of education for deaf children. The organisation would become the NDCS.

11/11/1948

The NHS was founded. Hearing care was accessible to more people, improving equality of access. But concerns about travel costs were raised in the House of Commons.

15/12/1949

The NHS helped reduce inequalities in access to hearing tests but people with hearing loss continued to experience inequalities in access to technology.

13/07/1950

38 years before the RNID called for care closer to home, an MP had already raised the issue with Aneurin Bevan.

01/10/1953

In its first five years the NHS fitted 401,524 patients with a Medresco hearing aid.

25/02/1954

French doctors in Paris stimulate the auditory nerve, signalling a breakthrough that would help invent the modern cochlear implant.

01/10/1954

By 1954 catastrophic diseases of the ear had become rare events.

01/01/1956

In the UK the State developed a new hearing aid but NHS patients continued to experience inequalities in access – e.g. one hearing aid when they had a hearing loss in both ears.

26/07/1968

The Hearing Aid Council is established to regulate non-NHS hearing care through the education, training and regulation of hearing aid dispensers.

01/01/1976

By 1976 the NHS was suppling 350,098 hearing aids a year. Yet the UK continued to underinvest in R&D and inequalities in access to technology worsened.

01/02/1977

First three patients fitted with bone conduction hearing aid implants in Sweden.

01/03/1977

First independent evaluation of cochlear implants published in the USA.

01/10/1981

The NHS had made it possible for people without the ability to pay to access hearing care, but inequalities in access continued to exist. Unmet hearing need was a growing public health problem.

01/02/1982

In an increasingly consumer driven age the RNID began to receive complaints about NHS hearing aids. A consequent RNID survey in 1982-83 was the first to identify gaps in follow-up care.

01/03/1984

FDA in USA approves the first cochlear implant for use in adults. Cochlear implants for children were similarly approved in 1989.

01/12/1984

Repeated system failures in NHS audiology have been driven by relying on past activity to predict future need and NHS planners considering hearing loss a low priority.

07/04/1986

“Breaking the Sound Barrier” launched with the goal of improving hearing outcomes for older people – including tackling unmet need.

01/07/1986

Research starts to challenge barriers to accessing NHS hearing aids, highlighting how people who could pay did not have to see a doctor, but that NHS patients did.

01/11/1988

With age of individualism in full swing the RNID launches a fair hearing campaign to put people with hearing loss at the centre of both NHS and non-NHS hearing care.

01/09/1989

RNID warns hospitals that if they do not deliver hearing aid services closer to home then service users and the government might not fund NHS hearing care in the future.

01/12/1989

The first major epidemiological study on hearing loss prevalence in Great Britain is published.

01/02/1994

Research shows that audiologists operating under clinical protocols can safely manage people with hearing loss.

01/01/1997

Heads of NHS audiology agree that care closer to home has major benefits for people with hearing loss in terms of access and hearing aid use.

01/09/1998

RNID launch a campaign to reduce the number of people with unmet hearing needs by 1 million over five years.

01/05/1999

Follow-up care is key in supporting people in using their hearing aids. By May 1999, lack of follow-up care had been a concern for 16 years, with the RNID again calling for care closer to home.

01/01/2000

Despite the clinical agreement that follow-up care improves hearing outcomes, by the Millennium, problems with lack of follow-up care had been documented for 18 years.

01/04/2000

The Audit Commission reviews NHS audiology and finds that a lack of investment and poor planning by some NHS commissioners means that hearing care is failing service users.

14/06/2000

NICE did not initially recommend replacing analogue hearing aids with digital hearing aids, but later accepted digital hearing aids were a proven technology and withdrew its guidance.

02/07/2000

The NHS finally addresses the longstanding inequity between public and private hearing care. Modernising Hearing Aid Services (MHAS) is launched.

01/01/2001

The RNID call for hearing aid services to be delivered out of hospital and raise concerns about NHS commissioners bundling adult hearing care and ENT.

01/04/2001

Modernising Hearing Aid Services (MHAS) is launched in Wales.

01/02/2002

Research highlights a lack of capacity and outcome measurement in the Scottish hearing service.

01/04/2002

World Health Organisation recommends that active ageing strategies should seek to address the hearing needs of the ageing population

01/06/2002

Audit Commission publishes two reports on NHS hearing care. It warns that a failure to follow past advice will pose a risk to services in the future. It was right.

01/07/2002

Taskforce produces best practice standards for adult audiology. The project is part funded by the Department of Health.

01/01/2003

The Scottish Executive invests £14 in modernising NHS hearing services.

08/03/2003

The Government recognises British Sign Language as a language in its own right.

01/06/2006

Hearing needs of newborns recognised at last. Newborn hearing screening is rolled out across the UK.

01/02/2007

Task Force publishes a systematic review on hearing aids showing hearing aids improve adults’ quality of life by reducing psychological, social, and emotional effects of hearing loss.

01/03/2007

The Department of Health sets a clear goal that people with hearing loss should be able to access care closer to home - 57 years after the issue was first raised in the House of Commons.

16/05/2007

In 2007 waiting lists for NHS audiology broke the two year limit again. This system crisis was foreseeable and could have been avoided with effective commissioning.

01/10/2007

The Royal College of Physicians calls for more audiovestibular physicians to be trained and for audiologists to provide diagnostic services in primary care.

22/07/2009

The Department of Health reconfirms its commitment to deliver hearing care closer to home.

01/07/2010

NHS Improvement programme urges NHS leaders to focus on delivering hearing care outside of acute hospitals and closer to people’s homes.

01/03/2011

Another report highlights gaps in follow-up care for people fitted with NHS hearing aids – a persistent challenge first documented in the 1980s.

01/09/2011

Gaps in follow-up care. Older people in Scotland say they want more information before and after hearing aid fittings.

01/10/2011

The RNID rebrands in early 2011 to Action on Hearing Loss. In its new guise it restates that the hospital model of care was not appropriate for the hearing needs of the ageing population.

04/02/2012

Patient and third sector feedback leads to NHS adult hearing services in England being selected as a priority for reform. Choice of out of hospital hearing care becomes a reality for some NHS patients.

01/02/2014

Research confirms that the main reason for a delay in access to hearing care is that people with hearing difficulties do not seek help.

01/01/2015

The NHS in England advises people to have their hearing tested and treated sooner as part of a healthy ageing strategy?

03/01/2015

Another UK-wide report in 2015 identified gaps in follow-up care for people fitted with NHS hearing aids –33 years after they were first reported.

05/03/2015

The NHS regulator in England publishes a report on adult hearing services, showing the NHS can improve access, standards and value for money.

06/03/2015

The NHS continues to consider adult hearing loss as a low priority. Rather than engaging with providers to make better use of budgets some NHS commissioners begin planning to restrict services.

23/03/2015

Healthcare leaders call for action on hearing loss. The NHS in England recognises hearing loss as a major public health challenge for the first time.

28/10/2015

Scottish Parliament becomes first in UK to promote the use of British Sign Language (BSL).

02/06/2016

US study calls for improved access to hearing services and for policymakers to treat adult hearing loss as a major public health challenge .

18/07/2016

First ever NHS National Commissioning Framework for hearing loss

30/05/2017

World Health Organization resolves to tackle hearing loss.

20/07/2017

Study finds link between hearing loss and dementia

25/09/2017

Landmark systematic review shows that hearing aids benefit people with mild-moderate hearing loss.

21/06/2018

New NICE guideline to tackle unmet hearing needs.

05/06/2019

National bodies join forces to tackle hearing loss in England by publishing a guide to assessing local needs.

11/03/2020

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published its first Tinnitus: Assessment and Management guideline, covering the assessment, investigation and management of tinnitus in primary, community and secondary care.

19/03/2020

NHS England stops audiology services during Covid-19 pandemic.

03/03/2021

World Health Organization published its landmark World Report on Hearing. Making clear the world must act on hearing loss and the “cost of doing nothing is one we cannot afford"

13/05/2022

When the UK Parliament passed the British Sign Language (BSL) Bill into law on 27 April 2022, it marked a momentous turning point in the long history of hearing care.

17/07/2023

An independent review into audiology services found “multiple, systemic problems within audiology in NHS Scotland”.

25/08/2023

An independent review into audiology services found “multiple, systemic problems within audiology in NHS Scotland”.

03/03/2024

The NCHA, the Association for Primary Care Audiology Providers, marked World Hearing Day 2024 by launching a new strategy, supporting the theme of ‘Changing Mindsets: making ear and hearing care a reality for all’.