With the Kingdon review of failures in children’s hearing services offering a blueprint for transformation, Kevin Munro urges the health secretary to implement the review’s recommendations.
Kevin J Munro PhD, is Ewing professor of audiology, Manchester Centre for Audiology & Deafness, University of Manchester, Honorary consultant clinical scientist, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and NIHR senior investigator.
Reproduced with permission from the Health Services Journal where the article appeared on 19 November 2025.
The findings of last week’s independent review into children’s hearing services are devastating (1,2). How could hundreds of children with hearing loss be diagnosed so late by the NHS? The catalogue of predictable and wholly preventable failures is almost too painful to hear. For years, these services have been overlooked, undervalued, underfunded, and allowed to drift into systemic dysfunction.
We know that countless factors shape a child’s development, but one truth is beyond dispute: the earlier a hearing loss is detected, measured and managed, the better the outcome (3). Fail to do so and the risks — to the child, the family and society — are profound.
It is even more disturbing to learn that concerns formally raised by specialists 12 years ago fell on the deaf ears of senior NHS leaders. And it appears it took an investigation by The Sunday Times before alarm bells were finally sounded in government.
Yet rewind 20 years, and England was admired worldwide for introducing the first universal newborn hearing check — an extraordinary scientific and clinical achievement. Within hours of birth, infants’ hearing can be screened accurately, allowing hearing aids to be prescribed within months rather than years. I frequently highlight this newborn hearing programme in lectures and conference presentations because its impact has been nothing short of transformative.
There was no such screening when I was born. At nine months, infants were given a hearing check by a health visitor, who watched for a response to a sound. The test was unreliable and eventually abandoned, a likely factor in my own late diagnosis of profound hearing loss in one ear.
Behind each statistic in Dr Camilla Kingdon’s review (4) is a child whose future has been reshaped by missed diagnoses, delayed interventions, or inconsistent care. Professional bodies and charities have shown rare unanimity in backing the report’s 12 recommendations, a sign of how serious these failings are.
The recommendations include a new commissioning model with proper monitoring of safety and outcomes, stronger governance within NHS trusts, a single professional register for audiologists, a reorganisation of service delivery, improved education and training, and a commitment to continuous improvement driven by research.
The list is long, and the challenges daunting. Yet remove any one of the recommendations and the remainder might tumble like a house of cards. Take research funding, for example. With services already threadbare, who has the capacity to generate the evidence we desperately need?
We must invest not only in studies, but also in the workforce capable of conducting them. Health research is not an optional extra: every £1 spent yields a £13 return to the UK. Research and innovation should be hard-wired into every new clinical role — part of job plans, inductions, and annual reviews.
Some actions, however, require no additional funding. The many-headed landscape of professional bodies and organisations representing UK audiology could — and should — commit immediately to forming a single national body. The current Tower of Babel, with its competing voices and mixed messages, only breeds confusion and fails to reach the people who most need to listen: policymakers.
Children’s hearing services are at a pivotal moment. The Kingdon review offers a blueprint for transformation, and we now await the detailed response from Wes Streeting, the secretary of state for health and social care who commissioned it. With the right leadership from the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England, this moment of abject failure could yet become the foundation of a stronger, more resilient service — one we can once again be proud of.
Mr Streeting has said: “The NHS saved my life. Now I’m determined to save our NHS.” Drawing an analogy with the BBC’s The Traitors, he insisted last week that he is, and always has been, a faithful. Of course, that’s exactly what the traitors said, too.
Kingdon has given him the diagnosis, reassurance that a cure exists, and a clear treatment plan. If he starts that treatment now, he will have the full support of audiologists, charities, professional bodies — and most importantly, the British public.
- Department of Health and Social Care. Kingdon review of children’s hearing services: final report. 10 November 2025. www.gov.uk/government/publications/kingdon-review-of-childrens-hearing-services-final-report/kingdon-review-of-childrens-hearing-services-final-report#executive-summary
- Wise J. Report highlights systemic failings in “Cinderella” children’s hearing service. BMJ2025;391:r2378 doi:10.1136/bmjr2378
- Yoshinaga-Itano C, Seday AL, Coulter DK, Mehl AL. Language of early- and later identified children with hearing loss. Pediatrics. 1998; 102(5): 1161-71.
- Iacobucci G. Senior pediatrician will lead review of “unacceptable” hearing test failures. BMJ2025;389:r776. doi:10.1136/bmj.r776 pmid:40240067
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