NICE have released the Final Appraisal Document with section 1.5 -proposed update. There is a consultation period until 18th January at 5pm for factual errors only. The expected publication date following this is 27th February.

1.5  For the purposes of this guidance, severe to profound deafness is defined as hearing only sounds that are louder than 80 dB HL (pure-tone audiometric threshold equal to or greater than 80 dB HL) at 2 or more frequencies (500 Hz, 1,000 Hz, 2,000 Hz and 4,000 Hz) bilaterally without acoustic hearing aids. Adequate benefit from acoustic hearing aids is defined for this guidance as:

�  for adults, a phenome score of 50% or greater on the Arthur Boothroyd word test presented at 70 dBA
�  for children, speech, language and listening skills appropriate to age, developmental stage and cognitive ability. [amended 2018]

This changes from 90 to 80dB HL at more frequencies (it was only at 2 and 4 kHz) and removal of BKB. This is now replaced by the Arthur Boothroyd word test which is single words so there is no context of the sentence to fill in the gaps like BKB.

In section 5 it states for NHS England to comply with the recommendations in this appraisal within 3 months of its date of publication.

NHS Wales must usually provide funding and resources for it within 2 months of the first publication of the final appraisal document.

The other good news is they have stated there will be a review in three years so we won't be waiting as long, the last review was in 2011which is new in section 7.......

7.1 The guidance on this technology will be considered for review 3 years after publication. The guidance executive will decide whether the technology should be reviewed based on information gathered by NICE, and in consultation with consultees and commentators.

Thank you for supporting this petition, not long to go until everything is finalised !