NN4B Supports New Hearing Test for Babies

The national rollout of the Newborn Hearing Screening Programme (NHSP) was launched this week with due praise for its technology devised by the NHS Information Authority, Syntegra and Hays CSG.

The NHSIA’s Numbers for Babies (NN4B) service supports the hearing screen for newborns which is generating major improvements in services for babies born with hearing problems. The service provides demographic details of newborn babies along with their NHS numbers – now issued at birth – to the NHSP via an interface.

The automatic download of data saves hearing screeners’ time and an automatic matching component in the system makes it less likely that a baby will be missed or remain untested.

The screen offers a new more accurate hearing test to parents in the first few hours after their baby is born. The project also illustrates well a point made frequently by technologists and change managers – that a smooth technological implementation needs to be accompanied by changes in practice in order to reap benefits for patients.

NHSP information co-ordinator and developmental psychologist, Sally Hind, said: “This has been an absolute catalyst for joined up working from the top down”.

Education and health services are now challenged to offer diagnosis, support and advice to parents in their baby’s early weeks and months. The previous test, the Infant Distraction Test, was not performed until the baby was six or seven months old. Its poorer detection rate also meant that diagnosis could be delayed for years.

Ms Hind said that new guidelines now meant that teachers of the deaf – key workers for children with hearing loss – should be available for children aged 0-3 years for 52 weeks a year instead of the previous service offered in school term time. The guidance also sets down standards for key workers to make earlier contact with families whose baby is found to have a hearing impairment.

Earlier diagnosis of moderate, severe or profound hearing impairments has been found to have a positive impact on the child’s subsequent speech, language, social, emotional and intellectual development. Ms Hind is researching the impact of early diagnosis on mild hearing impairment and hearing loss in one ear.

Gwen Carr, director of UK services for the National Deaf Children’s Society agreed that the new test had been a catalyst for change across the whole system. “Quality is on the rise but the change is not as good as we would like in terms of giving choice to parents.”