How HAB Hearing are dealing with COVID-19

The Steps We Are Taking To Keep You Safe

As a company we take the health and well being of our clients very seriously. From very early on in the coronavirus outbreak the government declared that local audiology clinics like ours were classed as an ‘essential service’ and we have been urged to keep the doors open to ensure we continue to look after the needs of our clients and general public with hearing problems.

We have stayed open as an organisation throughout the coronavirus pandemic (including through past and future localised spikes in transmission rates). We (still) take extra safety and hygiene precautions to make sure we keep everyone safe. We have been and continue to be open through all local and national lockdowns, meeting and exceeding industry guidelines to keep clients safe. More details below.

Accessories by Post

Our eCommerce accessories orders (website, eBay and Amazon) are now restricted to UK addresses only, we discontinued shipping to addresses outside the UK in March 2020. It is still possible for you to to order items from an overseas address as long as the shipping address is within the UK.

Wax Removal Service

Our wax removal service is classified as an ‘essential service’ by the government. We continue to offer the service to most clients (a small number of exceptions apply) through any localised and short term spikes in rates of infection and national lockdowns. For details of our wax removal service click here.

Repairs and Adjustments of Hearing Aids / Other Accessories / Equipment

With the advent of the Covid pandemic we decided as an organisation to speed up the transition of HAB Hearing from a predominantly home visit based service to offering a clinic based service. This has made sense on two counts – the first being that we can control the environment and therefore keep clients safe more easily, and the second being that we can provide a higher quality of service anyway with the equipment we have available on site.

If you need any programming adjustments to your hearing aids we ask that you contact us by telephone / email in the first instance to ideally arrange a visit in clinic. We are now offering a limited ‘home visit’ service for those unable to visit the clinic, but we must emphasise that a clinic visit offers the best outcomes and is most desirable all round.

We also have a drop-off service where you can deposit hearing aids and other equipment at our door and then wait in your car while we work on your equipment.

Most Recent Covid Guidance

We receive regular updated guidance from a collection of the main audiology advisory bodies in the UK (BSHAA, BSA, BAA and AIHHP) on how to interact with our clients at less than social distance in a safe manner, minimising risk and satisfying infection control procedures.

The guidance has substantial input from the Infection Prevention Society and draws much content from WHO research (World Health Organisation), Public Health England, Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, NICE and ENT UK.

This guidance is aimed at practitioners working within audiology who hold a professional registration with HCPC, RCCP, AHCS, those normally working in the field of audiology alongside qualified/registered professionals, and those currently on an accredited training programme.

The latest version of the guidance document can be found here, and a summary of the main points for us to follow the guidance are as below;

  • We will ask you to enter our clinic once the previous client has left, asking you to wait in your car in the car park until we are ready to call you in.
  • The area you will visit in clinic will be thoroughly cleaned and prepared before you enter.
  • We will ask you to apply hand gel on entry and exit as well as wearing a mask (that we will supply).
  • For our part our staff will observe the highest standards of hand hygiene, wear the appropriate PPE at the appropriate times, (including but not exclusive to) disposable masks and gloves.
  • Any accessories for equipment we use that touches you during your visit will be of a disposable nature.

We do hope you understand why we have these extra measures in place. We are working under instructions from organisations with great credibility and our intention is to do our best to look after the interests of our clients as best we can.

Click here for some useful Covid-19 information from the NHS website.

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