Care homes challenged by hearing loss charity to "follow Orchard's lead"

National charity Action on Hearing Loss have praised the approach of care home provider Orchard Care Homes to residents who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Featured in the charity’s report ‘A World of Silence’, Orchard Care Homes are held up as an example of good practice for other homes in the sector who wish to ensure a quality lifestyle for their residents.

Chief executive of Action on Hearing Loss, Paul Breckell, said of the company’s performance: “Orchard Care Homes are doing great work ensuring they have a procedure in place to assess, record and manage their residents’ hearing loss. We would like to see more care homes across the country to follow Orchard’s lead by including individual communication needs in personal care plans and training hearing ambassadors to provide dedicated support for residents who are deaf or hard of hearing.”

As part of the charity’s study, ‘hearing ambassadors’ visited the care homes to advise on how surroundings can be organised to suit individuals with hearing loss, cutting down on background noise and installing induction loop systems, while staff were trained to give basic hearing tests.

Orchard Care Homes have a healthy sector presence across the North of England, with all of their 42 homes now having procedures in place to make sure adults with hearing loss are well provided for.

Chief executive Paul Mancey, comments, “We recognised that more than one in eight of our residents had been diagnosed with hearing loss. We approached Action on Hearing Loss for their help in supporting these residents and we are proud to be working in partnership to develop our programme. Since introducing the recommendations from ‘A World of Silence’ in all of our homes, we have discovered much higher levels of hearing loss than had been previously diagnosed. This programme is making a real difference to our residents’ quality of life.”

Action on Hearing Loss estimate that three-quarters of older people in care homes have some kind of hearing difficulty, with lack of diagnosis found by the charity to be a major obstacle in delivering quality care. The charity is calling on England’s regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to include standards defined by its ‘A World of Silence’ report within its own inspection services.