There has been a 64 per cent increase in people in Scotland having NHS eye examinations since the introduction last year of NHS examinations for all.
In the year to March 31 2007 NHS eye examinations totalled 1,573,103, compared to 959,849 in the year to March 31 2006.
Of those examined, 3.6 per cent were then referred to their GP or for hospital treatment, with 96.1 per cent not referred for further care.
The NHS Information Services Division revealed that 38.1 per cent of all supplementary NHS eye examinations were for further checks of fields and intraocular pressure. There was a decrease of 3.1 per cent in the number of NHS vouchers at 442,944, while the number of supplementary tints decreased by 9.9 per cent at 10,847.
Speaking about the results, Dr Sudi Patel, optometric adviser, Practitioner Services NSS Scotland told Optician: 'If the legislation remained unchanged, we estimated the number of claims for sight tests would have increased to about 975,000. This number of people are still there and the remainder is made up of new business which would have been private before, so only about 600,000, or 14.5 per cent of the remaining Scottish population, have gone for an eye examination.'
On the drop in claims for vouchers and for the tint supplement, he added that there had been a steady decline in these claims since 2000.
'This may well be a direct response to the accuracy of claims received, tightening up of procedures and adherence to legislation,' he added.
Minister for public health Shona Robison highlighted the fuller supplementary examination and told BBC News it was encouraging to see the number of diabetic sufferers obtaining a free NHS eye examination was increasing.
