To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many digital hearing aids he estimates will be fitted as part of the Modernising Hearing Aid Services project each year (a) during the build-up to full implementation of the project and (b) when the project is fully operational. [115462]

By the end of April 2003, 83,397 digital hearing aids had been issued as part of the Modernising Hearing Aid Services project. Officials of the Department of Health and the Royal National Institute of Deaf People estimate that between 165,000 and 170,000 such aids will be issued in 2003–04 and between 290,000 and 330,000 in 2004–05. These estimates are based on experience gained from the project so far and are necessarily provisional. From April 2005, all hearing aids fitted in England will be digital unless an analogue aid is more appropriate for clinical reasons or because the patient prefers it.