Fear of health week fatigue

A local vision charity has raised concern about the number of awareness weeks being held in the sector.

Hampshire-based Open Sight contacted 40 practices to find out the impact of September's National Eye Health Week on patient numbers. It found that only 7.5 per cent saw an increase in numbers of appointments made from September 17 to 23, while 85 per cent saw no change and the remainder were unaware of the campaign.

CEO of Open Sight Tessa Barrett said: 'While we are not criticising Vision Matters the organisation that runs this week, we are concerned at the number of awareness weeks and believe that our nation is becoming anaesthetised to awareness weeks.