Advice on hearing aids in the UK for working woman in early 60s

[HorseandHeron]

Please can someone with good hearing aids advise me on getting some in UK.

I'm early sixties and my job sometimes depends on being able to hear speech clearly, often with background noise. Recently I've struggled a lot in these situations.

From the little I know, most people seem to hate NHS ones and abandon them in favour of private ones that work. I'd prefer to jump straight to the good ones and am happy to pay for the best I can afford. But where should I get tested? Which brands are great (speech matters most, especially speech with background noise)? As my work is client facing, often wiht younger people, i'd like unobtrusive ones, if possible.

All advice, opinions, experiences, dos and don'ts very welcome. Thank you.

NHS provision varies across the country and it seems some people have bad experiences. I can tell you that my NHS hearing aids look and work the same as my old private ones. It's the same brand, even, with the same features (Oticon bluetooth miniRite) the only difference is the NHS ones are battery not rechargeable.

An audiologist, whether private or NHS, will give you your audiogram, but it's better to get fitted in one session in case you need more calibration. If you're convinced you want to pay, then go to any Hidden Hearing high street place and they will sort you out. Mine cost about 5k back in the day.

Most hearing aids are over the ear, OTE, and just as discreet as any other. They are usually beige or grey.

DH didn’t get on with NHS ones, managed for ages without. Lots of amusing anecdotes of misheard words and names!

He recently went to Specsavers and was very impressed. Good follow up monitoring too.
Discreet Bluetooth ones. There were 3 price options and he went for the middle range.

Specsavers tested me as a free offer with a vision check about ten years ago and detected no-issues. It was nonsense as I knew I had some hearing loss in pne ear since early childhood. I eventually was referred to NHS audiology after I felt one ear was blocked and hear8ng dull overall who diagnosed me with total loss in that ear and age related loss in the other. I have similar ha on NHS as Specsavers sell for several thousands, bluetooth and one picks up sound on the side I have no hearing and relays it to the other ear to compensate. Not perfect and still background noise but I can adjust the levels. Not all ha are the same even on NHS and it depends on the type of issue you have as to which may suit.

Dh now has very modern nhs ones and they are much better than his original ones so I think it all depends on where you are. He is 58 and they are very discreet snd pair with his phone.

My advice would be to take the audiology assessment report and ask chat gpt or another ai tool to both help you underhand it, and understand what the hearing aids need to do for that specific profile.

my FIL had NHS and also privately funded hearing aids which he hated and consequently never wore. I got chat GPT to help us understand the hat the audiology report meant for him, what kind of hearing aid would work best, specific uk available models of hearing aid, and locally available places he could go. Chat GPT also created a list of questions for him to ask the audiologist to check he was getting the right thing. He now has aids that he wears much more, and is so much happier with them.

Thank you. That sounds like a good plan.

This is brilliant advice. Thank you so much. I would never have thought of doing this. The last hting I want is to spend £££ on aids I then never use.

That's interesting. Maybe I should try them first.

That's interesting. You spent 5k privately but NHS have since offered aids that are just the same? Maybe I should start with NHS.

Thank you so much to everyone who has replied. Every single reply has been really helpful and made me think about things I wasn't even aware of.