AUDIOLOGY staff at the Great Western Hospital have proven they can hear a pin drop at twenty paces after receiving national accreditation for their work to become one of only 12 departments in the entire country with the accolade.

With around 260 NHS organisations offering audiology services nationwide, Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is now ranked as one of the country’s best providers of hearing treatment.

Accreditation is a way of assessing the technical competence and integrity of organisations that offer services such as audiology.

It was awarded to the trust by the United Kingdom Accreditation Services after external assessors spent three days judging the department against a list of nearly 300 standards identified by the Improving Quality in Physiological Services.

Assessors looked at the quality of the service being offered by the trust and based their report around patient experience, clinical provision, safety and also facilities, resources and workforce.

Special recognition was given to the children’s hearing services offered by the department and, in particular, the hearing screening programme for new-borns which was described as “one of the best in the country”.

The award means that patients being treated for hearing issues at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon will experience consistently high standards of treatment in a safe environment and by experts who are at the very top of their profession.

Jane Deans, lead for Adult Audiology, said: “This accreditation is considered a gold standard for hearing treatment and covers all the services we provide including assessments, rehabilitation, balance therapy and treatment for tinnitus.

“We’ve introduced a host of changes to help get us to this position such as holding regular patient focus groups, giving face-to-face follow-up appointments to patients newly fitted with a hearing aid to assess their progress, holding more clinics in the community and using the latest technologies to ensure that patients can hear as much of what’s around them as possible.

“The whole department has worked tirelessly over the last two years to make this achievement a reality. I’m so proud of all my team and it feels fantastic to know that we are providing people in Swindon and Wiltshire with the highest quality audiology treatment.”

To date 28 organisations in the UK have received accreditation for at least one of their hearing services, however there are only 13 providers, including the Trust, that are fully accredited for all the services they provide.