The Kingdon review of children's hearing services finds children's hearing services are rarely on the radar of ICBs, providers or the regulator.

Report author, Dr Camilla Kingdon, said: ‘I am angry that so many people I interviewed referred to children's hearing services as a "Cinderella" service, in other words, a service that is often overlooked, undervalued and underfunded. Why should any of us accept that children are being offered critical treatment by an overlooked and undervalued service?'

The report's recommendations include: an urgent review of the Paediatric Hearing Services Improvement Programme; improved governance arrangements for audiology at NHS trusts and ICBs; and including workforce modelling and recommendations specific to the healthcare science workforce, including audiology, in the next NHS Workforce Plan.

In a letter of response, health and social care secretary Wes Streeting said the report shone a light on the ‘unacceptable' failure in children's hearing services and in the programme set out to improve these services.

Streeting said he had asked NHS England to work to address issues with the Paediatric Hearing Services Improvement Programme.

‘It is vital we work at pace to minimise the potential harm to babies and children from these service failures,' he added.

Professor Meghana Pandit, NHS national medical director, said: ‘We thank Dr Kingdon for her work on this review, which highlights serious structural and systemic issues have led to some children's hearing services letting children and families down. This is completely unacceptable, and we are sorry for the distress and impact this has caused to parents, children and young people.

‘Children deserved better - and that is why we have taken concerted action to improve these services for families and appointed two national speciality advisors for hearing and associated conditions who will oversee the expert clinical support we provide to drive improvement and accountability in local services.

‘We are pleased the report recognises the hard work of staff and we will continue our focus on recalling and reassessing affected children. We have also commissioned the National Deaf Children's Society to help support patients and families through this ongoing process, ensuring they are central to all decisions made.

‘The NHS is now beginning work on a fragile services framework which will help ICBs detect - and fix - potential problems in services like this.'