Hearing Health and Earwax Removal

Welcome to our CPD module series for community pharmacy technicians. Written in conjunction with the Pharmacy Magazine CPD series, it will mirror the magazine’s programme throughout the year. The series has been designed for you to use as part of your continuing professional development. Reflective exercises have been included to help you put your learning into practice.

Aim

To cover the causes and assessment of hearing loss, and impacted earwax and its removal, in adults.

Learning objectives

 After completing this module and its online counterpart, pharmacy technicians will be able to:    

• Appreciate the scale of under-provision of services 
• Recognise how pharmacy can fill the gap
• Help set up a hearing health service.

Key facts

• Age-related hearing loss (presbycusis) is irreversible and affects around nine million people in the UK
• A typical pharmacy will have 600 affected patients
• Impacted earwax (cerumen) is the most common cause of reversible hearing loss. An estimated 2.3 million people each year need earwax removal by a professional (around 150 patients per pharmacy in
  the UK)
• Demand for hearing assessment and earwax removal now greatly exceeds service capacity in the NHS.

Contributing authors: Professor Alison Blenkinsopp and Dr Martin Duerden.