Yonder: Hearing aids, postpartum depression, acute asthma, and online records.

Hearing aids. Despite technological advancements, hearing aids continue to be the most common intervention for hearing loss. However, for a variety of practical and psychological reasons, people fitted with hearing aids often stop using them. In the UK, volunteers who often wear hearing aids themselves have supported NHS patients’ use of hearing aids and a Bristol research team recently sought to describe encounters between these volunteers and audiology patients.1 Their observational data show that the volunteers provided information about the devices themselves and local services but did not discuss hearing loss. Their role therefore fits with that of a ‘volunteer expert’, extending healthcare capacity in the community and bridging the gap between community and specialist audiology services. The authors suggest that, in order for their value to be realised, volunteers would benefit from clearer management, support, and supervision, and should have an unhindered channel to communicate patients’ needs to audiology services.