Your child’s treatment journey

We offer a holistic, flexible service and always aim to keep parents and carers at the centre of your child’s care.

Assessment for cochlear implants

Anyone from your child’s healthcare team can refer your child for assessment (such as your child’s audiologist, consultant ENT surgeon, paediatrician or GP). We might need to ask for more information from your child’s audiology department before we can accept the referral. Once we have accepted the referral, you will be sent an appointment to complete a case history and answer any questions you have. This first appointment is sometimes over the phone.  

Most assessments for cochlear implants take around six months and you will need to bring your child to several appointments during this time. Sometimes an assessment can take longer than this – we need to be really sure that a cochlear implant is the right option. When children have a sudden hearing loss, for example, after meningitis, it is really important that we can see them very quickly. In this type of situation, we can give a surgery date within two or three weeks if needed.

Cochlear implant surgery

Most children are offered two cochlear implants. The surgery is done at the main Children’s Hospital site and children often go home on the same day.

After surgery

The cochlear implant surgery is just the start of an exciting life-long journey where we aim for your child to learn to listen and talk (as appropriate to your child’s abilities), or if they have lost their hearing, to be able to hear again. Our team of highly specialist clinical scientists and audiologists will see you and your child two to four weeks after surgery to programme the device and slowly and gently introduce your child to a world of sound. Each cochlear implant sound processor is programmed to the specific responses of your child and this is adjusted over time.

Our therapy programme

We are proud to be one of the few NHS services in the UK to employ and train listening and spoken language specialists (Certification AVT™). We offer a programme of regular therapy input in addition to assessment, monitoring and advice.

Our therapy team has many years of experience in speech and language therapy for children with hearing loss and complex communication difficulties and has worked in a variety of clinical and educational settings. We are therefore able to offer individually adapted programmes of support which are flexible to meet the needs of your child and the preferences of your family.

The whole team aims to offer guidance, coaching and life-long support, keeping parents and carers at the centre of your child’s care, in order to develop their full potential with their cochlear implants.

What is the National Registry of Hearing Implants?