Member

We just had a fantastic National Health Service report on children born without hearing. As one would have thought, one or two children in every thousand are born with significant hearing difficulties. The problem is that the National Health Service can do nothing about it. It is not that the facilities do not exist; it is that the National Health Service is already so overloaded that it just cannot cope. Children being born with this deficiency are not able to be properly cared for. With all these different trusts, the difference will be very acute according to where you happen to be born. I say that not as a criticism of the National Health Service, which I profoundly support. As a former ambassador for the World Health Organization, I have argued for the NHS, as the WHO does, for many years. I think it is the most magnificent institution, but somehow it is not quite able to cope yet with deafness. I would also suggest that the reasonable adjustments legislation, which has been wonderful, cannot be fulfilled. The National Health Service has the competence, but it does not have the capacity to do this.