The Company

The Hearing Care Centre supplies hearing aids and provides diagnostic audiological services at private hospitals in the South East of England including The Chaucer Hospital (Canterbury), Benenden Hospital (Cranbrook), Chelsfield Park Hospital (Orpington) and The Spencer Wing at The Queen Mother Hospital (Margate). We also supply hearing aids from our Folkestone and Dover Offices, Sanford Opticians (Herne Bay), Biggs Opticians (Deal) and Bowden & Lowe Opticians (Gillingham). All of the consulting rooms are ground floor and fully accessible to disabled patients.

Our team

The company also provides audiological services and custom hearing protection to industry and has a number of major local clients including Pfizer and P&O Ferries. The company has been trading in its present form for 12 years in its present form but the key personnel have a background in audiology stretching back over 25 years.

The facilities at The Chaucer Hospital are custom-designed and meet international clinical research standards and can be used for medico-legal evaluations as well as paediatric and electrophysiological testing. In addition to hearing evaluation we also carry out electronystagmography to assist in the investigation of balance disorders.

The Folkestone office has strong links to the local chamber of commerce, being previously based on the same site. This offers the company an opportunity to network with other local businesses, benefiting from the experiences of other specialist, service based companies.

Directors

Mark & Sue Scutchings

The company is wholly owned and managed by Hearbase Ltd (Directors - Mark Scutchings and Sue Scutchings). Mark Scutchings is a hospital trained clinical physiologist and registered hearing aid dispenser. He is responsible for the clinical and professional services of the company and is based at offices in Canterbury. Sue Scutchings is responsible for administration and control and oversees the day-to-day administration of the company at offices in Folkestone.

Clinical Staff

Sally French, Arthur Bates, Mark Scutchings, Anita Radziszewska & Andriy Drypen

Including Mark Scutchings, there are 4 fully-qualified hearing aid dispensers working at the practice. The work of the full-time staff is supplemented by the services of one audiologist to help with diagnostic testing and one technical assistant.

Administration staff

Ruth MacDonald, Sue Scutchings, Richard Smith, Rosetta Tagg & Carol Pepper

Specialist secretarial support is provided at each of the hospitals and the company employs four full-time office administrators based at the Folkestone office. Patient contact is managed via one freephone telephone number as a single point of contact for all enquiries, battery orders and appointments at any of the hospitals sites. Patients are encouraged to build an ongoing relationship with a single hearing aid dispenser, but have the re-assurance of knowing that there is always someone to help them out at short notice - an advantage of a multi-dispenser practice. Immediate access to patient records is provided at any location via our custom-built practice management software.

Company Philosophy

The philosophy of The Hearing Care Centres is that the best care for a person's hearing comes about through working in partnership with the medical community. Although the company does make use of Yellow Pages advertising, primary referral sources are general practitioners, Ear, Nose & Throat Consultants and other medical specialists. In the case of self-referring patients, the general practitioner is kept fully informed of the patients progress (with the patient's consent) and this ethically based approach results in many new patient referrals from the local medical community.

Unusually for a private hospital based service, The Hearing Care Centre does not make a charge for the initial assessment of new patients, but this is currently under review. The Hearing Care Centre is keen to maintain its independence from any one manufacturer so the patient can be offered the best possible assistance for their hearing problem without needing to compromise to maintain loyalty to any single supplier.

A hearing aid package includes all follow up appointments so that patients who require a high level of ongoing support are happy to return for regular fine tuning and rehabilitation. All patients are invited back for regular review appointments to ensure the hearing aid remains working optimally and to undertake any programming adjustments. Patients know they are welcome to call for an appointment any time in between reviews if they have a problem. Our opening hours are not the usual rigid 9-5 Monday to Friday. The relatively young age profile of our patient group means that we need to offer evening and occasional weekend appointments to fit in with work patterns.

Industrial Audiology

In addition to the hearing aid service and diagnostic testing, The Hearing Care Centre undertakes industrial screening projects and noise measurement for local companies. Health & Safety is an area of increasing concern for many employers and we are able to offer scalable solutions that can range from individual tests at one of our hospital sites up to on-site testing using portable audiometric booths. Where appropriate, we can advise on the suitability of a variety of types of hearing protection and can supply custom-made noise filtration plugs.

The Future

The Hearing Care Centre looks forward to continued growth in future years as a leading Centre of excellence in audiology, widening its referral base and giving improved patient satisfaction by the application of new developments in digital hearing technology within a caring, but clinically supported framework.