Mayday Hospital has been forced to contact 700 families after a machine for testing babies’ hearing was calibrated incorrectly.

The trust had to contact families of babies tested as far back as 2003 to make sure none of them had been missed by the faulty equipment.

So far six children have been identified with a hearing loss that was not picked up by the first test.

Four of these were already being seen by the hearing service. The other two are now receiving care.

Fifty-six children are awaiting a second repeat hearing test as the results of the first were inconclusive.

The trust is still trying to contact about 40 families who did not attend for their retest appointment to offer them home visits or further support.

Brian Gale, director of policy and campaigns at the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) said: “We are extremely disappointed the health service managers at Croydon failed to take the necessary measures required to provide an adequate service.

“For deaf children to make good educational progress in the early years and at school it is vital their needs are identified as soon as possible so that they and their families are given the right support.

“While we are pleased the health service has finally started to deal with this problem, it has placed the deaf babies not identified at a serious disadvantage with possible consequences for their success in school and later life.”

Inspectors from the Newborn Hearing Screening Programme (NHSP) were seriously concerned about the equipment during an inspection in July 2008.

Further investigation was carried out in October that year where the NHSP found the calibration on the machine used for screening newborn babies for deafness was found to be significantly different to the national standard.

They were also concerned about the way the test was carried out – some babies may not have been sufficiently settled during the test for an accurate reading to be taken.

The inspectors also felt the results may not have been accurately interpreted.

A spokeswoman for Mayday said: “As soon as we were aware of the issue, Mayday suspended the service and NHS Croydon arranged for new referrals to be tested elsewhere. Every family was sent a written apology and either offered a repeat test or given advice and support.

“The NHSP has provided full training on the test procedures, new equipment has been bought for use at the hospital and arrangements are in place for ongoing monitoring and quality assurance.

“The majority of the nearly 700 families contacted have reported no problems with their child’s hearing or not responded.

“The trust has apologised to all the families and has offered ongoing support.”

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