In my ongoing mission to alleviate GP pressures, in November I wrote to the chief executive of Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust asking why they would not accept self-referrals for hearing appointments, which needed a GP referral.

I have now received a response, in which they have told me:

“…patients have always needed a GP referral to obtain a hearing test. This is something that is due to change in the future with self-referral for Audiology services on the horizon, although this has not yet been introduced within our Integrated Care Board (ICB) due to staff shortages and service pressures across the whole system.”

I’m so pleased that this seems to be making progress, but if we don’t see this system roll out soon I will be following this up with the Integrated Care Board to push them into action.