RNIB Scotland is launching a variety of initiatives, including a report about the cost of blindness to the public sector, to coincide with this year's National Eye Health Week (June 14-20).
Throughout the week the charity will be highlighting its Ethnic Minority Eye Health project in Glasgow, which seeks to encourage more people from ethnic minority communities who are more prone to sight loss conditions to take up free eye tests.
SeeAbility is also getting involved with National Eye Health Week by producing a range of downloadable factsheets (www.lookupinfo.org), to show people with learning disabilities how to take care of their eyes. SeeAbility's director of information and advisory services, Paula Spinks-Chamberlain, said: 'No one is too disabled to have a sight test and we are keen to highlight the needs of people with learning disabilities. Awareness is at the root of the problem and over the past five years SeeAbility's eye 2 eye campaign has been instrumental in building better eye healthcare services for people with learning disabilities in the UK.'
According to RNIB Scotland, 30 per cent of people with a learning disability are also likely to have undiagnosed sight loss and it will also be launching a DVD to be used by optometrists as part of their CET training.