They are helpful.
Before I say more - I seem to have unintentionally derailled the thread. I apologise. But having started to, I might as well respond to Ally who's been so kind.
I'm angry about the Phonak aids, but to be fair to the audiologists working in the department, as opposed to whichever unmentionable did the bulk purchase of the Phonaks, they did try some different ones before the Phonaks, but when they were issued, my tremor was very bad, so they had to find some that they have that can be adjusted so the volume controls and T settings don't work, i.e. so that when I put them in, I don't accidentally change all the settings and have to spend ages trying to sort it and the only ones they'd got that they could do that with were the Phonaks. I don't have much of a tremor now, but it's caused by neurotoxicity from my medication, so varies according to dose and so I still have that need.
But I do think it's worth following a lot of your advice. I need to get it together to go back to the hospital audiology department and ask for more help.
About getting a test elsewhere - I used also to get hearing tests sometimes in a university teaching department, but I don't want to go back there because it was the same university that told me my night blindness couldn't be fixed, which it could. However, there must be other places I could get a test, whether that's somewhere like Specsavers, or whether it's a different teaching department. So thanks for the prod.
Having said that, I did a double-take on what you wrote, then remembered that these things vary from region to region. Where I live, people over a certain age can get NHS hearing aids from Specsavers. I could ask my local Specsavers what sort of aids they issue.