Full hearing assessment

Why it takes an hour

A pure tone audiogram on its own — some beeps and a curve — tells you the volume at which you start to hear, and very little else.

The problem that actually brings people here is not volume. It is hearing people speak and not catching the words, especially with background noise. A pure tone audiogram does not measure that, which is why we run eleven tests rather than one.

What happens during the hour

We start by looking inside your ear with a camera. More often than you would think, what has worried someone turns out to be earwax, and in that case the visit ends there.

Then you go into the booth. The consulting room is already sound-treated, and the booth is a second sound-treated room inside it — not a quiet corner. Without that the thresholds are not worth measuring, because street noise masks the quiet sounds.

Afterwards we sit down and talk you through the chart. If there is nothing to treat, we say so and that is that. If there is, you will see exactly which frequencies have gone and which speech sounds live at those frequencies.

What you take away

The report is yours, on paper, with every threshold on it. Take it to your GP, to an ENT consultant, or to another hearing centre for a second opinion or to compare quotes.

• The full audiogram for both ears, air and bone conduction
• Your speech understanding score, in quiet and in noise
• A referral letter for your doctor if one is warranted
• No obligation to buy anything, that day or ever

If you already wear hearing aids

Bring them, whatever the make and wherever you bought them. We put them through the test box to see whether they still deliver what they did when they left the factory, and we measure in your own ear what is actually reaching your eardrum.

It is a separate service and it is also free. Plenty of people find they do not need new hearing aids: they need the ones they have set up properly.