Harley Street and Wigmore Street, London
There is a part of your
hearing that has never
been tested.
Most hearing assessments measure what the ear can detect. The assessment that determines what your brain does with that signal is newer, rarer, and the part that changes what is clinically possible.
The Thing Nobody Mentioned
In 1961, Georg von Bekesy won the Nobel Prize for his work on the mechanics of the cochlea. Audiology was largely built on what he found. The cochlea converts sound pressure into electrical signal. Map the cochlea's sensitivity at different frequencies and you have an audiogram. For sixty years, this has been the foundation of the standard hearing assessment.
What the audiogram does not measure is what happens next.
The electrical signal travels from the cochlea along the auditory nerve to the brainstem, through multiple relay stations, and arrives at the auditory cortex. The cortex is where the signal becomes meaning. Where speech becomes words. Where a voice across a crowded room is separated from background noise. Where memory, attention, and language interact with sound to produce what we experience as understanding.
This part of the pathway, central auditory processing, operates independently of peripheral hearing sensitivity. A person can have perfectly normal cochlear function and significantly compromised central processing. Their audiogram will be entirely normal. Their hearing difficulties will be entirely real.
The assessment that evaluates this part of the system is not a standard part of a routine hearing test. It requires different equipment, different protocols, and a different clinical orientation. It produces a different kind of clinical picture. And it opens a different set of clinical possibilities.
Verified Hearing was built around this part of the pathway.
Our founder, Awajimijana Otana, spent years inside both NHS and private audiology settings before establishing this clinic. The pattern he observed was consistent. Patients with mild peripheral loss who continued to struggle in noise. Children with normal audiograms referred for attention or behaviour support. Adults with tinnitus told there was nothing further to offer. In each case, the picture was incomplete because the assessment had measured half the system.
The Brain-Based Hearing Assessment measures both. The Brain-Based Hearing Programme treats both. The NeuroQuiet Tinnitus Programme addresses the three-system neurological loop that maintains tinnitus in conscious awareness, not just the auditory pathway that detects it.
These are not improvements on what existed before. They are a different starting point, with a different clinical model, producing different outcomes for patients who were told either that nothing was wrong or that nothing could be done.
The audiogram measures what the ear detects. The brain-based assessment reveals what the brain does with it. These are not the same question.
Awajimijana Otana, Founder
What this means for you
If you have been told your hearing is fine but you know something is not right, the part of the system that was not tested may be where the answer is. If you have been fitted with hearing aids that technically work but do not solve the problem, the brain's decoding function may be the missing piece. If you have been told to live with your tinnitus, the clinical model applied to your case may not have been the complete one.
200+
5-star Google reviews across both clinics
5.0
Harley Street Google rating
BAA
National Award, British Academy of Audiology
Recognition
The standard that earned national recognition
British Academy of Audiology, National Award
Awajimijana Otana was nationally honoured by the British Academy of Audiology for his contribution to research and clinical audiology. This was a recognition of an individual's clinical thinking and patient care, not an institutional award. The standard that earned that recognition informs every appointment conducted at this clinic.
His clinical training included direct supervision from Mr Tony Kay, a former President of Tinnitus UK and one of the UK's most experienced tinnitus clinicians. He has since spent years facilitating Central London's only dedicated tinnitus support group, maintaining a connection with the lived reality of tinnitus that no amount of clinical study alone can replicate.
How We Practise
A clinical model built around the complete auditory pathway
Three things that are true of every patient who comes through this clinic, regardless of what brings them here.
Both systems are assessed
Peripheral hearing sensitivity and central auditory processing function. One tells us what the ear receives. The other tells us what the brain does with it. Neither is optional.
Technology serves the clinical plan
When hearing technology forms part of a treatment plan, it does so as one component of a structured programme, not as the programme itself. We have no sales targets. We are not incentivised by what we recommend.
A written report, same day
Every assessment produces a full written clinical document on the same day. Not a graph printout. A report you can take to a GP, specialist, school, or employer, that explains what was found and what it means.
The Audiologists
Every appointment is with a named clinician
There are no locum replacements at this clinic. No unnamed practitioners. The same HCPC-registered audiologist who sees you at your first appointment is the one who sees you again.
Awajimijana Otana
Clinical Audiologist
Known as MJ. MSc Audiology from the University of Manchester, MBA, and Roche Scholar. NHS specialist posts and private practice across two continents before founding Verified Hearing. Nationally recognised by the British Academy of Audiology for contribution to research and clinical audiology. Clinically trained in tinnitus management under a former President of Tinnitus UK. Patients describe him as one of those rare clinicians who makes a difficult situation feel entirely manageable.
Abby Pillay
Clinical Audiologist
BSc Audiology, RHAD registered, HCPC registered. Abby specialises in diagnostic audiology and speech-in-noise testing, two of the most clinically important and most commonly omitted elements of a thorough hearing assessment. Patients consistently describe her consultations as the most detailed they have experienced and her explanations as the clearest they have ever received.
Our Clinics
Harley Street and Wigmore Street
Harley Street
Address 1 Harley Street, London W1G 9QD
Nearest tube Oxford Circus, 5 min walk
Hours Monday to Saturday, 9am to 7pm
Get directionsWigmore Street
Address 126 Wigmore Street, London W1U 3RY
Location Directly opposite Selfridges
Nearest tube Bond Street, 3 min walk
Hours Monday to Saturday, 9am to 7pm
Get directionsHCPC
Health and Care Professions Council
RCCP
Registration Council for Clinical Physiologists
BAA
British Academy of Audiology
RHAD
Registered Hearing Aid Dispenser
The first step
A conversation costs nothing and answers a great deal
No referral needed. No obligation. If something in what you have read resonates with what you or someone you care for has experienced, we are glad to speak with you.