To ask the Minister of Health for a breakdown of the waiting lists for first appointments with an audiology service for each Trust, for each of the last five years.

This information is not held centrally so the information was requested from the Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts. The HSC Trusts advised that completed waits for hearing aid fitting is already available to the Department of Health, but anything else would require significant resources and therefore only be supplied at disproportionate cost, or in some HSC Trusts that the information is not recorded as required. The Department collects and publishes community audiology waiting times for hearing aid fittings annually. The Audiology completed waits 2021/22 report was published on 23rd May 2022 and is available and published at the link provided.