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The independent sector treatment centre scheme for NHS cataract services was an expensive 'over-reaction' to the need to increase rates of cataract surgery, senior doctors have claimed.

Many ophthalmology departments had improved cataract surgery pathways before the ISTC programme was proposed, writes consultant ophthalmic surgeon, Simon Kelly in a letter published in this week's BMJ signed by the president and vice president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and the chair of the BMA's Ophthalmic Group Committee.

Had the Department of Health followed the advice of clinicians, the royal colleges, and the BMA when the cataract and other ISTC schemes were proposed, improved access to cataract surgery would have been realised with much less expenditure and without destabilising NHS eye departments, the senior doctors added.

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