Seen but Not Heard: Improving Access to NHS Care for Patients with Sight and Hearing Loss

This year’s Purpose Best Advocacy Campaign Award should go to Specsavers.

Untreated sight and hearing loss costs the UK economy £62 billion, and costs patients their independence, health and happiness. Our UK-wide campaign sought to improve access to NHS care for patients with sight and hearing loss, ending a post code lottery of services. We met with 120 MPs, 23 MSPs, 17 MSs and 14 MLAs in one of the largest advocacy campaigns ever, which resulted in full buy-in from National Government, which declared that it had ‘gone to Specsavers’. The new Government committed to working in partnership with us to promote more and better services for those with age-related sight and hearing loss across the UK. We delivered a cross-party consensus and support across national, regional, and local government, and local health commissioners, to deliver 186 new services for patients nationwide. Alongside this, our advocacy work resulted in a large network of decision-makers and influencers with hearing and sight loss creating National Strategies for both, which we launched at Parliament, and we practiced what we preach by delivering testing for 1,886 political eyes and ears. We created an interactive map of services to identify needs, and sight and hearing service ‘deserts’. We successfully changed the conversation to a more positive and empowering one about sight and hearing loss, resulting in an increase in testing and treatments – with a 15% increase in hearing tests alone. We hope we have convinced you that the eyes (and ears) have it!