Family friendly hearing seervices are needed in the United Kingdom

EDITOR—We are the parents of a baby with profound sensorineural deafness, and the article by Fortnum et al rang many bells.1 The absence of universal screening of newborn infants seems a national scandal to us. If it had been in place we would not have waited nearly a year to discover that our baby has profound deafness. A year is a long time to lose when the early years are critical to the development of language and speech. The family friendly culture and seamless collaboration aspired to in the pilot protocols for universal screening seem a long way off. Lack of urgency from health professionals, a system that designs delay into it rather than managing delay out, and no real focus on customers or families are the dominant characteristics of the health service we have encountered.

Simple changes could make all the difference. Medical professionals are still dictating letters to secretaries and …