About The Hearing Clinic

About Bridgitte Harley

Bridgitte is a highly qualified and experienced audiologist. Her notable achievements include:

- Currently employed as a lecturer at the Ear Institute, UCL. Bridgitte is lecturing on the Aural Rehabilitation and Amplification module and she is teaching BSc, MSc, Ear Nose & Throat and Audio Vestibular Medicine students. This module focuses on the psychosocial and emotional consequences of untreated hearing loss as well as the advances in hearing instrument technology. Bridgitte has very specialist knowledge in hearing aid features and how to apply these in the hearing aid fitting process.

- 6 years working in the NHS as Clinical Lead in Paediatric Audiology. Bridgitte's responsibilities included diagnosing and managing hearing loss in infants and children which encompassed managing the family - helping them to come to terms with the diagnosis and equipping the caregivers with the knowledge, skills and confidence to enable their child to reach their full potential.

- 6 years working with acquired hearing loss in adults specialising in hearing aid technology whilst working for Oticon.

- Bridgitte's other clinical interests are Auditory Processing Difficulties (APD) and Tinnitus.

- At the end of 2005 Bridgitte joined the Hertfordshire Clinic to offer specialist private audiological and hearing aid services.

Membership of Professional Bodies

Bridgitte is a member of several professional bodies including:

Health Professions Council (HPC)
Royal College of Clinical Physiologists (RCCP)
Health Professional Council South Aftica (HPCSA)
British Society of Hearing Aid Audiologists (BSHAA)
British Tinnitus Association (BTA)
British Society of Audiology (BSA)
British Academy of Audiology (BAA)

Continuing Professional development:

Ongoing training and professional development are key to Bridgitte's work ethic.

2012

Tinnitus and Hyperacusis masterclass, UCL. Presenting workshop: "Fitting white noise generators for hyperacusis in children with and without hearing loss".

2011

"Developing a holistic approach service for children with hyperacusis: calming and enabling" - Lecturing at the Tinnitus and Hyperacusis Masterclass/Modular Msc in Advanced Audiology UCL

Tinnitus and Dysacusis. Masters module. Bristol University

2010

Management of Tinnitus and Hyperacusis in Children
Newborn Hearing Screening Programme - Annual Conference
Managing your Tinnitus patient : using Cognitive Behaviour Therapy techniques in audiological practice
Tinnitus Update Lecture Course - University of Bristol Hyperacusis Seminar

2009

Post Graduate Certificate in Hearing and Development (60 M level credits, completion 2010).
British Tinnitus Association – Counselling Training Course.
Sharing the News: Supporting and Empowering Families Through Effective Communication.
Newborn Hearing Screening Programme Annual Conference.
Identification and Management of Infants and Young Children with Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder (ANSD).

2008

Effective Amplification for Infants and Children (M level).
Newborn Hearing Screening Programme Annual Conference.
Phonak Conference – Improving Outcomes for Children with Hearing Loss.
Speech Acoustics: What is the Deaf Child Hearing – The Ear Foundation.
Helping Families Choose: Informed Choice from Theory into Practice – Newborn Hearing Screening Programme training.
Working in Partnership through Early Support.
Oticon training – Hearing Aid Technology Fitting Rationales and VAC.
Oticon training – Epoc, Epoc V and Vigo Hearing Aids.
Basic Clinical Audit.

2007

British Society Audiology Annual Conference.
The Listening Program - Certified Provider Qualification.
Oticon Delta and Go Pro hearing aid Workshop.

2006

British Society Audiology Special Interest Group: Auditory Processing Disorder in the UK – Update Meeting.
International Conference on the Auditory Cortex – The Listening Brain.
The Listening Program Provider training.

2005

Modernising Children's Hearing Aids Services (MCHAS) 2 day hands-on Training Course – University of Manchester.
American Academy Audiology Conference – Washington.
British Society Audiology Evening Meeting: Update Meeting for the Auditory Processing Disorder Group.
Current Trends in Auditory Processing Disorder – Diagnostic Issues.
Current Trends in Auditory Processing Disorder – Management Issues.
Electrophysiological assessment following Newborn Hearing Screening Programme – Harrogate Course.
Guymark Middle Ear Course.
Ear Care (Ear irrigation).
ILO288 Echoport training.

2004

British Society Audiology Study Day: The use of real ear measurements in the fitting and verification of Digital Signal Processing hearing aids for adults.
British Society Audiology Evening Meeting: Masterclass in Auditory Neuropathy.
Diagnosis and Management of children with Auditory Processing Disorder.

2003

Qualified as a Registered Hearing Aid Dispenser (RHAD).

2002

Tinnitus Retraining Therapy for the Management of Tinnitus and Hyperacusis.

2001

Electric Response Audiometry and Oto-acoustic Emissions – Harrogate Course.

2000

The Anatomy and Physiology of Balance. Computerised ENG Collection and Analysis.

About Bridgitte Harley continued

Bridgitte Harley studied in the beautiful winelands of the Cape at Stellenbosch University and qualified as an Audiologist and Speech Language Pathologist. After coming to the UK in 1999 Bridgitte has developed her career in the field of Audiology in both the adult and paediatric sectors. Although Bridgitte does not practise as a Speech Therapist, her training in this field has been invaluable in her current NHS role as Lead Paediatric Clinical Audiologist. Bridgitte started work in the UK as a senior audiologist in the NHS, working within adult diagnostics and rehabilitation as well as supporting busy Ear Nose and Throat clinics. Bridgitte diagnosed a range of hearing losses and fitted hearing aids to adults needing auditory rehabilitation. This role enabled Bridgitte to expand on her knowledge and skills in working with hearing loss in adults, especially age-related hearing loss and its impact on the overall well being and quality of life of the patient. Bridgitte also learned how important counselling and support are to the patient in the road to regaining good hearing, restoring relationships through improved communication, and helping to remove the barriers to a good quality of life that is often associated with hearing loss. After 3 years working with adults, Bridgitte joined a leading hearing aid manufacturing company just as the NHS was moving over from analogue to digital hearing aids. In this role Bridgitte specialised in the field of hearing aid technology and developed a deep understanding on how digital hearing aids process sound and how this digital sound can be of great benefit to people with hearing loss. A large proportion of Bridgitte's role was devoted to training NHS audiologists on the theory of digital hearing aids and the programming software that is required to tune the hearing aid according to the patient's hearing loss. This was a wonderful job and Bridgitte feels very privileged to have played an important role in moving NHS audiology departments onto digital technology.

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