Exploring the feasibility of providing hearing screenings by a community learning disability health promotion team

There is a relatively high incidence of hearing loss in people with learning disabilities, but there are concerns that the annual health check this population receives may be ineffective in identifying hearing loss in them. A service improvement initiative was undertaken to explore the feasibility of providing community-based objective hearing screens for people with learning disabilities and to determine whether the annual health check, which involves a subjective hearing assessment, is effective in identifying hearing loss. The initiative was conducted in two phases. This article describes phase two, which examined the feasibility of using support workers from a community learning disability health promotion team (LDHPT) to provide hearing screens. The results were compared with those of phase one, which involved audiologists undertaking the hearing screens. Overall, the results of the service improvement initiative suggest that objective hearing screens should be provided for people with learning disabilities. In addition, the involvement of the LDHPT can improve service users’ access to audiology diagnostic services, therefore reducing the healthcare inequities experienced by this group.