The comments follow the publication of a new RNID report which found that while some people delay seeking help for hearing loss because they see it as a natural part of the ageing process, others delay seeking help due to stigma.

Based on interviews with UK hearing aid users – the report also found that a lack of joined-up health services, and people’s attitudes to hearing loss, were preventing people from taking action to address the problem.

Karen Finch, who’s Managing Director of the Hearing Care Centre, says many people with hearing loss don’t seek help because they believe others will think they are not “normal” if they wear hearing aids, or because they think it will make them look older than they are.

“People have even told me they are frightened to wear hearing aids because others will think they are stupid”, says Karen, ”yet some researchers believe that untreated, hearing loss not only isolates people from those they care for and from society in general, it can also affect your health”.

Karen has been campaigning for years to get the sector included in provision of NHS private hearing care – she believes in many places doctors aren’t sympathetic and tell patients they are “just getting old” and hospitals are often difficult to get to and impersonal.

“If you have a problem seeing things, you pop into an optician and have an eye test (free if you are over 60) – I just don’t understand why people with hearing loss shouldn’t be able to have their hearing test on the high street in just the same way,” she said, adding, that the national screening proposed by the RNID would go a long way to reducing the stigma of hearing loss by making it “normal” to have your hearing tested.