Together we can address growing glaucoma patient need

Together we can address growing glaucoma patient need

Specsavers is urging the eye health sector to get behind proposals set out in Parliament to meet growing glaucoma patient need.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is being urged to direct Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) – which commission local NHS services – to commission a uniform glaucoma service delivered by qualified community optometrists. The proposals were put forward in the House of Commons by Leicester South MP Shockat Adam, an optometrist, on 20 January.

Specsavers clinical services director Giles Edmonds says: ‘Community optometry is part of the solution to address growing patient need when it comes to both detecting and monitoring glaucoma. We welcome these proposals for a national commissioning framework for community glaucoma services in England.

‘Specsavers supports and is also in agreement with the College of Optometrists’ comments welcoming these proposals. We are now urging the entire eye health sector to get behind this important initiative in parliament to address patient need.’

He adds: ‘Specsavers expert optometrists and their teams are ready and able to do more to take on this condition, which is known as the silent thief of sight. We also continue to engage positively with colleagues across the eye health sector as well as policy makers on eye health because together we can make positive change.’

Setting out the proposed legislation in the House of Commons, Mr Adam said: ‘Patients are losing their sight not because care does not exist, but because the pathway is broken and the follow-up is delayed.’

He said that hospital ophthalmology was one of the largest out-patient specialities in the NHS – with hundreds of thousands of people on a hospital waiting list for an ophthalmology appointment.

‘NHS hospitals cannot carry this load alone,’ said the MP. ‘What am I asking for? What can be done to begin to tackle this silent epidemic?

‘Fundamentally, I am asking for a national direction from the Department of Health and Social Care to ICBs that they should commission a uniform primary care glaucoma service that utilises qualified high street optician practices. Only by doing so will we end the postcode lottery in glaucoma care.’

He also said: ‘Making full use of the skills and capacity already in primary care takes significant pressure off hospital services, enabling them to focus on tasks that can be managed only in a hospital.’

Mr Adam’s proposed legislation came on the same day as a separate report on eye health was launched by IAPB – the overarching alliance for the global eye health sector – in Parliament.

Mr Edmonds was on the panel at the event that focused on how investment in eye care is good for health and economic development.

‘As optometrists, we are prepared to be the GPs for eyes, but that requires bold decisions,’ says Mr Edmonds. ‘We have the skill, the technology and the will, so let’s make full use of the capacity and capability we have to improve access to care for everyone in communities throughout the UK.’

The event was hosted by Marsha De Cordova MP, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on eye health and visual impairment. It was also attended by MPs and ministers including Mr Adam and the DHSC’s Stephen Kinnock, along with eye health campaigners.