Services for disabled people are “unacceptably poor”

The NHS has promised to upgrade equipment and services for disabled people after a critical report by the Audit Commission.

Many of the four million older and disabled people living in England and Wales receive a service that is “unacceptably poor,” according to the report. Patients often wait longer than six months to be fitted with a hearing aid but because of the poor quality of the hearing aids or misunderstood instructions a third are used rarely or never. Many people who need artificial …