Patients across the country are waiting more than two years for a hearing aid, and up to five years to have old-fashioned equipment replaced by modern technology.
Almost 50,000 people, many of them elderly, are stuck on NHS waiting lists and 10 primary care trusts have admitted to delays of more than a year for patients in need of their first hearing aid.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "We acknowledge that audiology waiting times in parts of the country are too high. That is why we recently published a national framework which sets out the tools the local NHS needs to transform this service."
