Hearing assessment appointments

Before your appointment 

Ear wax 

To have a hearing assessment your ears must be clear of wax. 

When you saw your GP for a referral to us, they should have checked your ears for wax. If that didn’t happen, please see the nurse at your GP surgery or seek other means to check your ears are clear of wax before you come to your appointment with us. 

If you need to manage your wax, please take a look at the ear wax section on the NHS website. There are also local providers who can remove ear wax for a charge. Some can visit you at home if required. 

Things to think about before we see you

Please bring any old hearing aids with you to your appointment, even if you’re not currently using them.

At your appointment we’ll ask you some questions. Please think about these three questions beforehand, so you have your answers ready on the day: 

• what difficulties do you have hearing in everyday situations? 

• how do you feel about wearing hearing aids? 

• when do you feel it is most important that you can hear clearly? 

At your appointment 

Your appointment may last up to an hour and you'll see a highly-trained specialist called an audiologist. 

The audiologist will ask you about your hearing, explain how the tests will work and answer your questions. You’ll be asked to give verbal consent to the hearing tests and this will be recorded in your notes. 

The audiologist will look in your ears using an otoscope. They’ll also ask you to put on headphones and listen to sounds at different pitches and volumes. You’ll be asked to press a button each time you hear a sound. 

After the test the audiologist will discuss the results with you straightaway. It may be that we agree to try hearing aids. If so, we'll talk the options and next steps through with you. There are different styles of hearing aids to suit different hearing loss. We might need to take a mould of your ear to make sure we get the right size fitting for you.