Arranging earwax removal for a parent who cannot get out

The person who books this is very rarely the person with the blocked ear. It is usually a son or a daughter who has spent months repeating themselves and has finally gone looking for what to do about it.

Two things make that awkward, and neither is talked about much.

They do not think anything is wrong

Hearing goes quietly. From the inside, nothing has changed — it is everyone else who has started mumbling. Telling someone they are going deaf is a conversation that goes badly almost every time.

What tends to work better is making it small and specific. Not your hearing is going, but your left ear has been blocked since the summer, and somebody can come and look at it in the front room on Tuesday. It is a smaller thing to agree to, and it happens to be true.

Getting them to an appointment is the whole obstacle

For a great many people, the reason nothing has been done is not the treatment. It is the journey. Somebody has to take a morning off, get them into a car, find parking, and sit in a waiting room. That is why the service exists in this shape: everything comes to the house instead.

What you need to have ready

• The address, and roughly which village or town it is in.
• Whether the ear has ever been perforated, or had grommets, as far as anyone knows. “Not sure” is a perfectly acceptable answer.
• Whether they wear hearing aids, and how long they have had them.
• Whether you will be there. Either is fine. Some people would rather their family were in the room, and some would very much rather they were not.

Book it in your name if that is easier. Put their address in the address box and say in the message who the visit is actually for.