The celebrations kicked off with the twentieth birthday party at The Ear Foundation premises in Nottingham with 200 people from throughout the UK joining the party to celebrate, with the Lord Mayor of Nottingham and with Colin Wells, of Casualty.

The sun shone and everybody could enjoy the activities on offer with the clowns, farm animals, balloon race and plenty to eat. Marion Batt, the mother of Michael Batt the first child to be implanted, was delighted to come and meet up with the original team and with Rosalyn Springer, the daughter of Mrs Marjorie Sherman, who funded the first implants herself.

Throughout the month, a series of fundraising family walks took place, with Hear, Walk and Talk being held in East Midlands, Scotland, Newcastle, Norfolk and London. Families of children with implants and adult users got together to walk to raise funds for The Ear Foundation in weather conditions that varied from hail stones to brilliant sunshine!

The Ear Foundation has always been at the forefront of educational services about cochlear implantation and March saw a challenging twilight website lecture given by David McAlpine from UCL entitled ‘What the Brain knows about Cochlear Implantation’. This was watched throughout the world via the PHONAK website and is still available to be watched on The Ear Foundation website, as are all our Twilight lectures.

The following day saw many international delegates in Nottingham for Cochlear Implantation: Time for Change? This conference brought together users, commissioners of health care, scientists, surgeons, therapists and teachers to reflect on the major changes in cochlear implantation that have taken place over the past twenty years and to take a look to the future at innovative ways of developing the technology and delivering the services. Following a challenging day, delegates were then welcomed at the council house in Nottingham for a civic reception once more the Lord Mayor of Nottingham who has taken a huge interest in the charity's work.

Twenty years ago cochlear implants were in their infancy and the potential they were going to have for the development of spoken language was unknown. The ability cochlear implants would provide to enable participation and enjoyment of music was also not foreseen.

The Ear Foundation's month of celebrations continued with ‘Sounds Inspiring’, a concert by deaf and hearing musicians in Nottingham. Russ Palmer, a deafblind musician, described his musical and communication journey with hearing aids and then with a cochlear implant and entertained everybody with his guitar playing, piano playing and singing. The band The Deafness from Mary Hare Schools truly inspired the audience with their hour of mixed singing, playing and with a group of talented young people interpreting music to dance. As one of the audience commented ‘it was a truly inspiring evening I never dreamt that this was possible’. The evening was the last time that The Deafness will play together before setting off for university and we wish them all well.

The month concluded with The Ear Foundation’s family weekend at Centre Parcs. This is an annual event, but this is the largest ever with over 200 delegates, and welcoming cochlear implant users for the first time. It began on the Friday night with a talent competition; The Ear Foundation’s Got Talent! This was compered by Colin Wells who welcomed the judges and the children who once more inspired and entertained everyone with their range of talent. We enjoyed stand up comedy acts, singing, guitar playing and dancing. A truly entertaining evening.

The next day saw troubleshooting workshops in the morning and in the afternoon a family conference while the children and young people had their own activities. The conference reflected on the first surgeries and began with a message from Graeme Clark, the inventor of the Nucleus Cochlear Implant, congratulating The Ear Foundation on its twenty years and wishing everybody well for the future.

Gerry O’Donoghue looked back on how the surgical procedures have changed and took a look at the future with the current challenges at implementing bilateral implantation, the increasing use of combined implants and acoustic aids and looking to hair cell regeneration. He was bombarded with questions from parents and users keen to know what opportunities the future might bring. The conference ended with three young people inspiring everyone with their stories of achievement in a huge variety of ways and concluded with the winners of the talent competition entertaining the audience with a rendition of Mamma Mia. The conclusion was that the weekend was a wonderful opportunity to make new friends, meet with old friends, share current challenges and learn a great deal.

The whole month has been inspiring for The Ear Foundation and all our friends. Twenty years ago we had no idea that cochlear implantation would transform the lives of so many deaf children, young people and adults. Now that the majority of profoundly deaf children have cochlear implants, and the controversies are much less, who knows what the next few years will bring?

Following the celebrations, John Heppell, Labour Member of Parliament for Nottingham East, questioned the PCT funding in Parliament following the NICE guidance. His question and the response he was given by the Minister of State for the Department of Health was as follows:

Mr. John Heppell: 'Last week, I attended a celebration of the Ear Foundation, which is a charity that was set up to fund the first cochlear implant procedure in the city of Nottingham. Now that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has decided that it is a good idea for profoundly deaf children to have implants for both ears, can the Secretary of State tell me what he is doing to ensure that primary care trusts listen to that advice?'

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Dawn Primarolo): 'The recommendations from NICE with regard to implants must be complied with within three months of the guidance being issued, which was 28 January. PCTs are required to do two things. First, they must make available the funds for clinical decisions to be taken on the patients who should receive that treatment. Secondly, where there are patients who have already been treated but would now benefit from the NICE recommendations, they must ensure that a proper assessment is made of whether they should have that treatment provided to them.'