People in the district are waiting more than a year to have their old hearing aids upgraded on the NHS, according to a new report.
A survey of all hospitals in the UK by the British Society of Hearing Aid Audiologists (BSHAA) found an average wait of between 60 and 64 weeks for people needing to replace an analogue hearing aid with a digital aid.
At Bradford Royal Infirmary the waiting time is 65 weeks and at Airedale General Hospital, 52 weeks.
Patients at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary face a wait of up to five years, according to the survey.
Researchers also looked at waiting times for a hearing test and a first aid to be fitted. The average wait in England was between 45 and 48 weeks.
At Bradford Royal Infirmary people wait 43 weeks for a hearing test and a further four to five weeks for an aid to be fitted, giving an average total of 47-48 weeks - down from 60 weeks in 2005.
Airedale General Hospital has an average waiting time of 60 weeks, compared to 2005 when it was between 30 and 38 weeks.
For the second year running Leeds General Infirmary was the hospital in the north with the longest waiting times for first-time patients at 117 weeks.
BSHAA president Karen Finch said what was most shocking was the length of time it took to get aids upgraded from analogue to digital.
She said: "Most of these people are older and, in many cases, very old. To have to wait five years for the chance to improve their quality of life must be the biggest healthcare shock in Europe."
There is no Government waiting list target for hearing aids but Professor Ian Philip, the Government's National Director for Older People, said: "Hearing services have to become a higher priority because hearing loss can lead to isolation and in some cases depression.
"The Government has given £120million towards improving access to and the availability of digital hearing aids and later this year, as part of the Government's action plan, I intend to produce a guide for Primary Care Trusts who commission hearing aid services."
Andrew Smethurst, audiology manager at Airedale NHS Trust, said: "Because of the superior sound quality of the new digital hearing aids, we have seen a real increase in new patients coming to us and in the number of our current patients that are having a reassessment for the new technology hearing aids.
"This has led to an increase in our waiting lists and we are working hard to ensure our patients are seen as soon as possible by the audiology team.
"In September we appointed a new audiologist to our team and we hope that this too will contribute to our patients' waiting times in the future."
A spokesman for Bradford Teaching Hospitals said: "Waiting times have improved since the survey. We have introduced a waiting time reduction initiative to bring waiting times down to 20 weeks for first-time hearing aids.
"There is a large demand for the service because of the introduction of digital hearing aids."
A spokesman for Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Our records show our current maximum waiting time is around two years which obviously does not tally with the survey's figures.
"We appreciate there are long waiting lists in audiology and it is not a problem unique to us."
e-mail: claire.lomax@bradford.newsquest.co.uk
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