Chair's Update August 2026

Hello! It’s an honour to be here as the new Chair of the BSA. This is my first message as Chair, so I hope it sets the tone for working collaboratively and transparently.

I start at a time when the audiology profession has been in the spotlight and is experiencing many challenges. The Kingdon report highlighted issues in paediatric audiology, but similar issues exist across all of the profession. Nevertheless, as noted in the Kingdon report, it is the amazing determination and dedication of audiology professionals that has kept services on their feet, despite the challenges they face, often from within their own organisations. We should be proud of this, but we should also be enabled to achieve more, and that’s why I wanted to dedicate more time to support the BSA.

The BSA’s guidance documents are foundations of audiology in the UK. We also spend considerable effort supporting research and developing the profession, engaging with bodies such as IQIPS, NICE, HSE, HCPC, the NHS nations and more, collaborating with colleagues in the professional bodies. It’s worth remembering that this is all delivered by volunteers, all of whom have busy day jobs, and we celebrate the enormous commitment given by these individuals. We are really very grateful to you.

To help us continue moving forward positively, I’d like to ask for your support by encouraging your colleagues to become members, or by finding other ways to engage with and promote the BSA. A strong and active membership helps ensure that we can continue to develop the guidance, resources and opportunities that benefit the profession. If you value what we provide, please consider how you might help us strengthen and sustain it for the future. We value diverse voices and perspectives and would love to hear from you!

As the new Chair, I have to ask how we best address the challenges in the future and deliver better services for patients. All of the societies and professional bodies in audiology are voluntary, so it is difficult to dedicate focussed resource on every committee and initiative, or to step forward and lobby for our own view of the profession with the Government. A College of Audiology could help with this. The BSA have entered into discussions with BAA, BSHAA and AIHHP to consider the College, and also formed the Joint Audiology Leadership Group (JALG) to address issues jointly in the interim. Our current plan is to poll members of all the organisations, to seek permission to continue talks and to enable you to offer comments, concerns or suggestions. We would then aim to define what a College looks like in more detail so that each organisation’s members could vote for or against it, from a position of clarity.

Please watch this space for more news, but feel free to contact us directly at bsa@thebsa.org.uk if you would like to input or contribute.

Thank you again for your continued membership and commitment to audiology and hearing science.