PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
(1 July 2026)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether NHS England collects comparative data on waiting times for specialist audiology services, including tinnitus, cochlear implant, balance disorder and complex hearing loss pathways; and what the latest available waiting time data is for patients served by NHS providers in West Sussex.

Asked by:
Alison Griffiths (Conservative)

No assessment of the trends in the level of variation in referral pathways for adult audiology services in England has been made.

Data on waiting times for specific specialist audiology pathways such as tinnitus, cochlear implant, balance disorders, and complex hearing loss services is not held.

NHS England does, however, publish data on waiting time data for the Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) specialty which includes some audiology patients. The available data is not broken down to individual specialist audiology pathways or by constituency.

The latest published data, from April 2026, shows that patients in the NHS Surrey and Sussex Integrated Care Board, which covers West Sussex, are receiving ENT care quicker, with 57.9% of patients now waiting within 18 weeks, an increase of 6.1% on a year earlier. This data can be found at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/rtt-waiting-times/rtt-data-2026-27/

Answered by:
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