Blindness counselling ‘hanging by a thread’

Counselling and support services for patients who are going blind are worsening, found a new report by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), prompting a petition.

Forty-seven per cent of all eye hospitals in the UK failed to offer any support to people who are going blind, showed the RNIB’s Hanging by a thread study of 400 eye clinics and hospitals. Just 8 per cent of those who lost their vision were offered formal counselling. The charity also reported that many support roles were at risk of losing essential funding, urging the NHS to protect funding for sight loss advisers and opening a petition calling for more roles to be created.