Dr Peter Prinsley
MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket · Labour · United Kingdom
“I am confused by the Opposition referring in their new clause to a requirement to “make regulations” in this respect, as the private sector is already widely used to reduce waiting lists where appropriate. However, we must also be aware of the problem we have with overuse of private facilities.”
“I wonder whether the hon. Member’s experience mirrors mine. Many years ago, it seemed to be easy for general practitioners to ring me up. I often received telephone calls from general practitioners asking for advice about patients.”
“I am listening carefully to what the hon. Member, who is a medical colleague of mine, has to say. Although I think that a fracture liaison service is an excellent idea, there are many, many aspects of medical care that require careful attention, such as the management of people with hearing loss—my own field—or the assessment of people wi…”
“I agree with everything that the Minister has to say—what a surprise—but particularly the fact that when the new Government came in, they did something about these 40 “new” hospitals that were not full hospitals.”
“I am interested in what the hon. Member has to say about strike action. I was involved in trying to get the resident doctors’ strike stopped, but was unsuccessful for many months. I think she is talking about the principle of whether people involved in medical care should ever go on strike.”
“Does the Minister agree that the single most effective thing that we have done for public health since we were elected is to get the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 passed? The gradual abolition of cigarette smoking will save more lives than anything else we could conceivably do in politics.”
The complete record
Every one of 496 lines we hold for Dr Peter Prinsley, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 10.
“In Bury St Edmunds, we have many US servicemen from Lakenheath who are living off-base. They are a huge asset and greatly welcome. Does the Minister agree that the US remains our most essential ally, and will he join me in expressing gratitude for the service of those brave US servicemen and women, who are so important for our security?”
“I can recall the description of the scorpion in the jam jar. Mandelson surely has some sort of self-destruct chip inside his head. It was reported in The Times this afternoon that Mr Butler, the Downing Street adviser to Gordon Brown, said that the memo containing highly sensitive market information allegedly leaked by Mandelson presented an unimaginable breach of trust. Does the Minister agree that this looks like political insider trading on a grand scale, and would he support not only an independent inquiry, but a criminal investigation?”
“On Holocaust Memorial Day itself I was so proud to stand in the cathedral of Bury St Edmunds, alongside local Jewish citizens and the schoolchildren of Suffolk, and to make the declaration of remembrance as the first Jewish MP for this ancient town, for we are living in a time of increasing polarisation and division. This is our struggle. I have seen the marches, and they fill me with foreboding. We have seen the protests, and we have seen the rise of far-right, so-called populists all over the world, including right here on Westminster bridge. Too often, the legitimate street protests against the actions of the Israeli Government have simply degenerated into shocking antisemitic chanting. The murderous attacks on Jews on Yom Kippur in Manchester and in the attack in Australia did not arise from nowhere.”
“On Monday, I attended a most moving service at the Foreign Office, and I must thank the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the embassy of Israel and the chargé d’affaires, Daniela Grudsky Ekstein, for the invitation. We heard the extraordinary testimony of Marla, who with her brother Ben Helfgott, were the only members of a large family to survive. I have heard Marla speak before, but her haunting testimony only amplifies in significance as one hears it again. We heard the quite incredible voice of Cantor Turgel, the grandson of Gena—the bride of Belsen—who married the British soldier who liberated her. He sang the prayer for the departed, “El Male Rachamim”—“God full of compassion”—the prayer which asks God to grant rest to the souls of the deceased.”
“Last weekend, I was privileged to attend the Holocaust Memorial Day events at Wells-next-the-Sea. A small group of non-Jewish people have established a regular series of cultural events at the Maltings arts centre. Diana Cook spoke about her mother, Margot, who escaped in the days before the outbreak of the war to become a nurse and who lost all her family in the Holocaust. Diana is part of an oral history initiative called G2G—Generation 2 Generation—which carries the story of the Holocaust down the generations. Margot spoke little of her childhood, and only after she died did Diana fully appreciate the crucial importance of oral history and of Generation 2 Generation. I thank her from my heart and soul.”
“A BBC “Hidden History” documentary brought the story to our attention when it was revealed that they were almost certainly Jewish skeletons. The bones were handed to the local community, and here I must name my dear departed friend, Mr Clive Roffe, who insisted that the bones be given a dignified Jewish burial. I held the bones in my hand, and there was a large hole in the side of a skull. Even after all these years, it was obviously not a natural hole. DNA studies by the Natural History Museum here in London showed that there were genetic matches to contemporary British Jews. Here we have scientific evidence of an English pogrom in 1190. Antisemitism is not new. Holocaust Memorial Day is so important. This year, the theme is “Bridging Generations”.”
“It was right here in Parliament, in 1290, that King Edward decreed that the Jews must leave. They were not allowed to return until the time of Oliver Cromwell, hundreds of years later. We should not imagine that this is a uniquely German idea; this is an ancient hatred and, with the leave of the House, I will tell Members something about it. It was in Norwich, in 1140, that the Jews were falsely accused of murdering a boy called William to use his blood for sacrifice—something that Jews never do. This is the infamous blood libel, which sparked antisemitic hatred all over England and echoes throughout the ages, even to this day. Some 20 years ago, a shopping centre was under construction. A medieval well full of skeletons was revealed—17 skeletons from three families, including children.”
“The leases have allowed a detailed map of the ancient city centre to be drawn, showing the location and the ownership of the houses, and the location of the synagogue, the school and the physician, for there were Jewish doctors in Norwich 1,000 years before I was appointed. On King Street there is a great merchant’s house, which still stands. It was the house of Isaac Jurnet. It is the oldest house of Jewish habitation in England, and the vaulted crypt is unaltered since the time of Jurnet, who was the financier of the cathedral and much else besides. The house is presently in need of restoration, and there is a plan to create a centre for the study of antisemitism with the department of Jewish studies at the university. Never has this been more essential. Which country in Europe was the first to expel the Jews?”
“Great chests with multiple locked clasps were made to keep Exchequer rolls and documents. There were five locks, with the keys held by Crown agents and local citizens so that they could only be opened together, to prevent any disagreements. Lately I discovered just such a chest in a church at North Creake. The county archive in Norwich contains hundreds of medieval property leases and documents, many of which are written in Hebrew. They have curiously wavy and crenelated margins, for they were written in duplicates to enable matching copies and ensure that there were no forgeries. These are called indentures.”
“The community was established in the 19th century following the arrival of Jewish people from Europe, who were largely fleeing discrimination and persecution. I am delighted that Mrs M. Leveton, aged 80-plus, and her husband Mr B. Leveton, aged 90-plus, were both awarded the British Empire Medal in the new year’s honours for their lifelong service to the community. However, ours is not the first Jewish community in Norwich. Jewish people came to England with the Normans. Communities formed in many cities under the protection of the Crown, at Norwich, Bury St Edmunds, King’s Lynn and Thetford—all over the successfully growing economy of East Anglia. Moneylending was forbidden to Christians, so Jews began to work in finance and moneylending. A special Exchequer of the Jews was established by the Crown to collect taxes.”
“The Chief Rabbi speaks of the moral foundation of our society, and of how the Holocaust did not start from nothing. It started with a normalisation of division, prejudice and hatred, building on the oldest hatred of all. There is a warning here for all of us: do not imagine that it can never happen again in our time. That is why it is so important to remember, why I believe it is so important for us to build a national Holocaust memorial, and why I am so pleased that that was included in the Government’s legislation. Let us get it done before the last eyewitnesses pass into the history books. I have lived with my family in East Anglia for 30 years. I am a part of the Jewish community of Norwich, a member of the synagogue and a past president of the community. There is a beautiful restored synagogue and a small thriving community.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is an honour to be able to open this year’s Holocaust memorial debate. In The Sunday Times of the week before last, the Chief Rabbi described the dilemma of the teacher faced with the question of what to do on Holocaust Memorial Day. Given the polarising impact of the events of October 2023 and the terrible loss of life in Gaza, it may be simpler not to have an event at all this year. In 2023, 2,000 schools held events to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. Some 1,200 schools did so in 2024, 854 did so in 2025, and almost certainly there will have been fewer this year. The Chief Rabbi asked the question that we are all asking: as we lose the last survivors—the eye witnesses of the Holocaust—how will we keep our oft-repeated promise to them that we will never forget?”
“There has been a terrible war in Gaza, but the origins of the political problems are ancient and complex, and it is not the responsibility of the law-abiding Jewish citizens of this country, who have been intimidated and vilified. I welcome the measures that our Government have announced to address this. I am a Jewish MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, and the very first Jewish MP for the town that was the first to expel its Jews in 1190 following the slaughter of 53 Jewish citizens—commemorated with a steel teardrop in the abbey gardens—so history has come full circle. There is no greater honour in my life and no greater duty than to ensure that we will always remember them.”
“I absolutely agree with the right hon. Member: that is exactly the case. He makes the point extremely well, and I thank him for doing so. The banning of a Jewish MP from a local school in Bristol was simply an outrage. We receive messages from families of isolated Jewish pupils in rural East Anglian schools where there are persistent taunts and worse, and the schools are simply unable to cope. Resources must be found to address this problem, because this is urgent. Antisemitism, which never disappeared from this country, exploded after the events of 7 October 2023, even before the actions of the Israel Defence Forces.”
“The right hon. Member is making a really powerful speech. Does he agree that there is a strong suspicion that some of the hate marches we have seen on the streets of Britain have been orchestrated by Iranian agents?”
“We all know that story, but Samantha, who was a University of East Anglia student, became a close friend. She is one of the granddaughters of a Windermere boy, so it was great to hear about that. We will never forget the Heaton heroes. If there is time, let me quickly explain Bevis Marks, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake). Bevis Marks in the City of London should actually be “Bury Marks”, but I have to stop.”
“It has been an immense privilege and honour to listen to the many brilliant speeches in the House this afternoon. I thank anybody who said anything kind about me. I have made some notes about what people said—there is no time to go through all of them, but I must mention one or two. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) spoke with such gravitas; I think she has a future as a distinguished rabbi, should she ever wish to go out of politics, which she perhaps will not. The hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) spoke about Peter Kurer BEM, who is my sister-in-law’s father. He will be so chuffed to learn that he was mentioned here in Parliament, and I thank the hon. Member for that. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) spoke about the Windermere children.”
“Oh, there is time! In that case, I will tell hon. Members the story. The great Abbey of Bury St Edmunds had large landholdings all over the country, including land in the City of London. Wooden stakes were put out each year to define the land, which were called the Bury marks. “Bevis Marks” is simply a spelling mistake.”
“Friend the Member for East Kilbride and Strathaven (Joani Reid), who is the most powerful advocate for the Campaign Against Antisemitism. If it were up to me, I should appoint her as a righteous gentile. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered Holocaust Memorial Day.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for that information, which I was aware of. If I have a little time, let me thank the leader of Plaid Cymru, the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts)—I simply cannot pronounce the name of her constituency. She was correct that we must remember the other genocides, some of which really are a memory for me, not history; many of us can remember several of them. I was particularly taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal), who spoke about the expression “never again”. As he correctly said, “never again” is a test for all of us. What will we do to ensure that it will never happen again? Finally, I would like to say something about my hon.”
“The measure to prioritise the graduates of UK medical schools is simply common sense and I support it, alongside, I understand, almost all Members of the House. Finally, let me issue a word of warning. The number of new medical schools—I understand that there are many new medical schools, including the one in Cumbria, which I did not know about—means that we have more graduates than ever. That is good, because we have insufficient doctors, but the health system must create additional training posts, more substantive posts for general practitioners and hospital specialists, and incentives to create these posts, especially in general practice, so that our new neighbourhood health centres, which I like to call “Bevan health centres”, can be fully staffed and open late at night, and so that we see an NHS renewed.”
“As we have heard, although competition is healthy, it is certainly not healthy for the ratio of applicants to posts to go from about 2:1 to more than 4:1. As we have also heard, this is absolutely the cause of the bottlenecks. UK graduates simply cannot progress and are obliged to repeat years, often as unstructured and unrecognised clinical fellows. They leave the country or give up medicine altogether. The Government have rightly recognised that this must change. Medical training is a continuum, and the end result is a general practitioner or a hospital specialist—by the way, I much prefer “specialist” to “consultant”. Doctors have five or six years of undergraduate training, and eight to 10 years of postgraduate training, and it makes no sense to graduate so many students and then fail to accommodate them in postgraduate training.”
“That does not just mean paying them properly, although we obviously must do so. Today we are speaking about our doctors, for young doctors face a very uncertain future. After Brexit, many of our European doctors just left. The deficit was filled, as so often in the past, by doctors from the rest of the world. Especially in hospitals that are remote from medical schools—such as my hospital, the West Suffolk hospital in Bury St Edmunds, and the hospital where I worked for so many years, the James Paget hospital in Great Yarmouth—we have always depended on brilliant doctors from many nations, many of whom have become my long-term colleagues and some of my best friends. Immigration rules were altered after Brexit, effectively enabling applicants from across the world to apply for a very limited number of posts.”
“Now young doctors are simply sent by chance, with little notice, to a region of the country they have never visited. They are far from their friends. Ironically, they are now called resident doctors, but that is the very last thing they are; the residences have long since disappeared. The shift system replaced the on-call rotas, and the doctors’ mess disappeared, so hot food was no longer available. Now, if they are lucky, they have an office chair in which to rest, and a sandwich dispenser in a cold corridor. They have no friends nearby, nowhere to live, and nothing to eat at night. It is not really the best start, and these are the young doctors on whom your life may depend. We really must do something to look after the health workers who look after us—all health workers.”
“I welcome the Government’s plan to change the law. It was obvious to me and to others that such a change would be needed, and it was one of the matters about which the newly elected doctors spoke to Ministers last year. Imagine, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you have graduated from a medical school, excited at last to be called a doctor, and looking forward to finally getting to work after years of intense study, uncountable examinations and fierce competition. When this happened to me at Sheffield medical school, our early pre-registration posts were organised by the university. We were simply distributed around the local hospitals. We were in familiar locations, with our classmates and consultants who knew us. We began, rather hesitantly, to work as doctors, but suddenly we had responsibility for life and death. However, something changed.”
“Last year, my surgical colleague Mr Rahbour, of West Suffolk hospital, spent a month at the Nasser hospital in Gaza. When I met him last week, he gave a graphic description of the situation in and around the hospital. He is one of the brave NHS workers of whom we can all be intensely proud. As we have said, access to humanitarian aid is very difficult, and many internationally recognised agencies have lately been banned—as, indeed, I am myself banned. What further representation can we make to resolve this? Surely it is in the interests of all people in Israel and in Palestine for this fragile peace to be preserved.”
“Many in this House are concerned about the malign influence of the ayatollahs in our own country. There has been dreadful slaughter on the streets of Iran, but curiously little protest on the streets of Britain. What a contrast that is to the regular protests—sometimes intimidatory to local Jewish people—about the terrible war in Israel and Palestine. Could the aforementioned malign influence explain this?”
“As possibly the only MP with American grandchildren, may I ask whether the Foreign Secretary agrees that whatever disagreements may arise between this Government and the Government of the United States about Greenland, the bonds of friendship and kinship between the peoples of this island and the peoples of the United States are historic, vital and enduring?”
“I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. It is disappointing, but perhaps unsurprising, that some of the evidence presented to the Home Affairs Committee was an AI hallucination. As I look to the back row of the Opposition side of the Chamber, I ask the Secretary of State whether she shares my suspicions that there was indeed political interference with the work of the Birmingham safety advisory group. What will happen if that turns out to be the case?”
“I am concerned about medical students. If they have problems at university, there is a duty of care for them; if they are outwith the university, at a general practice or in another clinical setting under the aegis of the NHS, there appears to be no statutory duty of care. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must sort that out, particularly in respect of the sexual harassment of students?”
“I believe I just heard the hon. Member say that there had been a petition with 3 million signatures last year and one with 1 million signatures this year. If that is correct, does that mean that the number of people calling for an election has fallen by two thirds?”
“Mr Boris Johnson—hon. Members may remember him—was previously described as a man with the wrong set of talents for his particular crisis. Our Prime Minister is, I believe, exactly the opposite. The situation of the world at the moment is as hazardous as any of us can recall. I met a man in a dinner jacket at a black tie dinner just a few weeks ago who told me that he is the chairman of a local Conservative association and that, given the way the world is at the moment, he believes that the Prime Minister is doing a brilliant job. I also believe that to be the case, so let us not have a general election right now. The hon. Members sitting on the Opposition Benches know very well that we must not have a general election.”
“Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover). Some will say that we are U-turners, but I say that we are a Government who listen—we listen. We listen to my constituent, Roxane Marjoram of The One Bull, Bury St Edmunds, who met the Chancellor of the Exchequer and then wrote her a personal letter about the difficulties of the rates revaluation for pubs. I understand that we will see some reversal of that revaluation. Just a few minutes ago, in the Lobby, I met farmers from Suffolk who told me they were so happy with what the Prime Minister had said about increasing the threshold for the inheritance tax. This is a Government who listen. Some Opposition Members have been critical of the Prime Minister. They say that he perhaps lacks vision. I am not sure quite what they mean by that. I say that he is the right man at the right time.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. It is lovely to see so many hon. Members on the Opposition Benches—that is unusual in a Westminster Hall debate. I am a new politician, but I like elections. I like them very much, especially if I can talk about the health service. I like talking about hospitals, about our plans for our hospitals, about getting the waiting lists down and about our plans for neighbourhood health centres and for revolutionising the IT. I also talk up research. However, I do not think that now is the right time for a general election because, as the Health Secretary is fond of saying, although much has been done, there is much still to do. I am sure that we will see great changes as we bring the public with us and renew the NHS, as is our sacred duty. I am an optimist, unlike the hon.”
“I am concerned about the villages in my most beautiful constituency of Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket; there, people tell me that they are increasingly concerned about the lack of affordable housing in rural communities. What steps is the Minister taking to increase the supply of affordable housing for local people in rural villages through reforms to the planning system, and how will those reforms support the rejuvenation and long-term sustainability of our villages?”
“I am delighted to inform the Secretary of State that the long-awaited footbridge with lifts has finally been installed at Stowmarket station and is due to be commissioned very soon—”
“But indeed. [ Laughter. ] There remain several hazardous crossings on the busy east-west line between Ipswich and Cambridge, including at Thurston, where pedestrians are obliged to walk across the track. Does the Secretary of State agree that we must support all initiatives to improve the safety of such crossings?”
“I welcome the Government’s statement this evening. I am proud that Suffolk is home to one of the largest air bases in the country. British military families have been in contact with me this afternoon as they are alarmed at the deterioration in the security situation. What reassurance can the Secretary of State give to them?”
“We must address this crisis, starting with co-ordination between the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education, so that salary equivalence is restored to retain the existing workforce on which our medical science depends. Let us do something we can actually do to make survivable cancer survivable. This is our political task.”
“Clinical academics are doctors who not only teach the next generation of doctors, but translate scientific research into clinical applications and the supervision of clinical trials. I did an MD at the University of East Anglia on the clinical observation on the genetics of a rare ear disorder, so I understand the difficulties of medical research, but also the intrinsic delight that comes with unravelling the mysteries of medicine. That role is particularly critical for less survivable cancers, where progress will depend on sustained academic leadership on converting research into viable treatment. Unfortunately, there has been a serious collapse in the number of clinical academics in our country. Many are now approaching retirement, and the levels of recruitment of young clinical academics are completely insufficient.”
“One such example was my lovely neighbour, who presented last Christmas with loss of vision in one eye. He was found to have secondary lung cancer in the retina. It was completely incurable and unamenable to any effective treatment. Sadly, he was dead within a few weeks. Our country has a proud record of medical research. After all, it was here that we first discovered the link between cigarettes and lung cancer, when epidemiological studies of British doctors were conducted in the 1960s. When that was revealed, my own dad gave up his pipe. The greatest act of our new Government, some 60 years later, was to continue with the legislation introduced by the last Government to ban cigarette sales, eventually, for every citizen.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for securing this debate. Cancer remains a most feared word. We doctors have learned to use all sorts of other words: “growths”, “tumours” and suchlike. There are relatives who will tell us, “Don’t use that word in front of the patient, for it would simply kill him.” But things have changed. Cancers that were considered incurable are now curable, and cancers for which there was no treatment are now treatable. Such is the power of scientific progress, for it is upon science that we will depend. What exactly is a less survivable cancer? It is one defined by persistently poor outcomes across all stages. Many have mentioned the six with a survival rate at five years of only 16%.”
“T4. Happy new year, Mr Speaker. My visit to France with the Select Committee on Home Affairs exposed the reality on the beaches: French officers facing pitched battles against violent smuggling gangs to stop hazardous boats launching. Many of the crossings are successfully thwarted. Does the Minister agree that the populist myth that our French partners are simply waving migrants through is not only offensive to those brave officers risking their lives but undermines the critical intelligence sharing that is needed to address this sinister trade, and that the support provided by the Sandhurst funding is money well spent?”
“There is a central question here, which can be simply put: if we do not condemn the American actions in Venezuela, what is to stop dictators around the world acting in a similar way against our allies and our interests? Does the Secretary of State agree that rules do matter?”
“I think that such a model could be developed and rolled out around the country so we have community-based, county-wide, not-for-profit aural care services that provide hearing aids. I am not confident about simply distributing the contracts for hearing aid provision to a whole lot of private providers—Specsavers is one but there are many others—because the quality of their services is variable, and there will always be an incentive to provide private hearing aids. If someone walks into a service, they will be told, “Well, you can have this NHS hearing aid, but you know what? You could have this private one.””
“I would like to talk about Hear for Norfolk, or the Norfolk Deaf Association, which I chaired for quite a few years before I came here. It is a community-based audiology service that employs qualified nurses who have previously worked in NHS hospitals, and they perform what we call aural care, which includes removing earwax. People can just turn up to have that done; if they are referred by their GP, it is free on the NHS as there is a contract, or they can pay £50. We have vans that go around the district into nursing homes and small villages to do that work. We now have a contract for hearing aid provision from the NHS, meaning that our not-for-profit charity provides thousands of hearing aids and treats thousands of patients in a community-based setting.”
“I have repaired numerous eardrums over the years that had been smashed by syringing, so that system was not completely without its problems. Of course, we had aural care nurses in hospitals looking after patients and coming to take out their earwax, or if a patient had undergone an ear operation, the nurse would have to clean out their mastoid cavities. We then, however, began to see all sorts of community providers of earwax services, sometimes set up by people who had been nurses in ear clinics, and sometimes set up by somebody from another occupation—they could have been a Member of Parliament who decided that they were now going to do earwax removal. There was a fee to be gathered from this, and some people did fairly well from removing earwax, but the provision was of very variable quality.”
“I have a feeling that anybody could set themselves up as a hearing aid provider, if they wanted to. We had this completely variable system in which some people spent large amounts of money on hearing aids that they kept in a drawer, and some people received hearing aids for nothing from hospital services. That was how we went on, until somebody mentioned earwax. As some people may remember, general practices used to remove earwax with large stainless steel syringes that had a spout on the end. Those procedures were done by nurses until about 2012 when it stopped being part of the GP contract. There was a problem with the syringe: the little stainless steel nozzle on its end could become a bit worn, so it would not be completely connected. As a result, when somebody pushed the syringe, the stainless steel nozzle could fly off into the ear.”
“I would say to people, “The hearing aids that we can give you are like John Lewis hearing aids; they are pretty good, and they are good enough for most people. I don’t think you should go and spend £4,000 on two private hearing aids. You should have the hearing aids that I can give you for nothing in my NHS clinic, because most people will be very happy with that.” That was the model we used until a particular Government came along—I cannot remember which one—and decided that we ought to have something called the “any qualified provider”, or AQP, system. Suddenly, all sorts of people could provide hearing aids willy-nilly. We had a different acronym for it: “any willing provider”. Anyone who wanted to provide hearing aids could do so because, as has been said, there was not a particularly close supervisory mechanism.”
“The digital hearing aids provided by those private providers often cost in the thousands, so they need to sell a hearing aid only once or twice a week to stay in business. At first, those hearing aids were a bit better than the ones we could provide in the hospitals. Some time later, we began to distribute digital hearing aids through the NHS, which was brilliant. People would come to me and ask, “Do you think I should get a private hearing aid?”, and I would say something like, “Well, you can get a private hearing aid, but it is a bit like a hi-fi.” Someone can go to Argos and get a hi-fi or they can go to Bang & Olufsen and get a hi-fi. There is a big difference in price and they do actually sound quite different.”