A city care centre is setting up shop once again to help those suffering from hearing difficulties.

The Hearing Care Centre is taking up its original spot at Norwich's Thorpewood Medical Centre, in Woodside Road, after a lengthy absence due to Covid.

Matthew Coward, operations manager at The Hearing Care Centre, said: "We're super excited to have that location again.

"The GP's practise manager personally invited us back which was nice - it felt good to be wanted back.

%image(15612431, type="article-full", alt="The location for The Hearing Care Centre is back at Thorpewood Medical Centre, where they operated out of before Covid.")

"We've been on a temporary hiatus from the surgery for the last 18 months due to Covid and we have been visiting patients in their homes, safely, instead or at our nearby clinic in Hethersett.

"Now things are getting back to some level of normality we felt it was time to relaunch the centre."

Simon Myhill, clinical lead audiologist, will be looking after operations at Thorpe.

Mr Coward continued: "This will give people with hearing issues more freedom to go somewhere closer to them and saves them going to another centre that's further away, like in Hethersett, Dereham or Thetford for example.

"We want to try and spread ourselves as best we can to give people access to our services."

%image(15612433, type="article-full", alt="Matthew Coward, operations manager at The Hearing Care Centre, said: "We're super excited."")

The centre provides assistance to people with hearing issues, offering tests and providing specific devices to help them.

Mr Coward said: "We deal with anything under the umbrella of hearing and provide items such as hearing aids and assisted listening devices.

"We also look after people who suffer from tinnitus as well as make custom made noise protection earplugs."

The centre opened on March 18 and will be open every Friday for the time being but Mr Coward is looking to expand.

%image(15612434, type="article-full", alt="Audiologist Simon Myhill conducting a hearing assessment.")

He said: "We'll be operating just on Fridays at the moment - we're tentatively putting our toe in the water to see how things go - with a view to be open more days going forward.

"Patients are pleased that we are back up and running.

"Hearing loss affects one in six people, so if you add that up across the population of Norwich, it will affect quite a lot of people and we're hoping to help."