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Time to strengthen community glaucoma care in England to save sight

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It’s Glaucoma Awareness Week 2026 (6-12 July)

Time to strengthen community glaucoma care in England to save sight

This Glaucoma Awareness Week 2026 (6-12 July), Specsavers is calling on ministers to improve access to community glaucoma care in England, building on proven models across the UK.

In most cases, sight loss from glaucoma can be prevented if it is caught early and properly treated and monitored. But glaucoma remains one of the leading causes of irreversible sight loss in the UK, which is in part due to a failure of successive governments to do more to ensure best practice in glaucoma care is followed everywhere.

‘Glaucoma needs to be higher up the agenda of policymakers in England,’ says Giles Edmonds, clinical services director, Specsavers. ‘It is a chronic, progressive disease that already affects more than one million people in the UK and more than 100,000 additional people will be affected by 2030.

‘A failure to make full use of the capacity and expertise of primary care optometry means that in too many areas of England the full burden of diagnosing and treating glaucoma is falling on overstretched hospital eye services.’

Glaucoma accounts for around 25% of hospital eye service outpatient activity, notes Mr Edmonds. ‘In addition, hospital workforce shortages, rising demand as the population ages and increased demand for follow-up care means hospitals are overstretched,’ he says.

‘This is causing delays in diagnosis and treatment, increasing the risk of avoidable, irreversible sight loss.’

He adds that Specsavers is supporting Glaucoma UK as the charity launches a national patient voice survey. ‘This survey is designed to capture the experiences of people living with glaucoma and provide important insight to help inform future improvements in care. As a partner of Glaucoma UK, that is why we’re supporting this survey.’

Call to draw on developments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Mr Edmonds also points to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland which have all taken national steps to make better use of primary care optometry to keep more care in the community, reduce pressure on hospital eye services and reduce delays to diagnosis and treatment.

In England, decisions are left to individual integrated care boards (ICBs), which commission NHS services at a regional level, resulting in a postcode lottery in access to care. One example of successful commissioning in England is the glaucoma enhanced referral scheme in Greater Manchester.

‘It has made huge strides in improving access to care by harnessing the capacity and expertise that exists in high street optometry – enabling truly integrated collaboration between community and hospital-based clinicians,’ says Mr Edmonds.

Under the scheme, when an optometrist identifies a risk of glaucoma during a routine sight test, they can instead conduct additional tests and share readings and images electronically with the consultant in hospital. Only those patients who need hospital care are then referred on.

‘The scheme has cut the number of patients needing to be referred to hospital by more than 50%, freeing up specialist capacity in hospital for those patients who really need it,’ says Mr Edmonds.

‘It has also cut the number of unnecessary referrals to hospital. In Greater Manchester the false-positive rate is close to 10% compared to around 40% in areas without an enhanced referral scheme, further freeing up consultant time to focus on patients who need their expertise.

‘The scheme is also exceptionally safe with studies showing very low risk of critical glaucoma cases being missed by optometrists.’

He adds: ‘If NHS commissioners in England would take what works and apply it consistently, we would be able to do far more to prevent avoidable sight loss. There is no longer any excuse for inaction. Specsavers community optometrists are part of successful schemes and are ready to use their expertise to further improve access to sight-saving NHS services.

‘It’s a message that we’ll continue to take to commissioners, ministers and MPs as part of our mission to improve access to care and prevent avoidable sight loss caused by glaucoma.’