Government under fire

The National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations (NCPTA), a national charity representing over 13,000 parent teacher associations, has criticised the government for failing to monitor the provision of vision screening programmes for school children.

As reported in Optician, (News, June 13), the government came under fire for conceding in an answer to a written question in Parliament that it did not hold official data on the provision of vision screening programmes undertaken by PCTs.

The question addressed to the Secretary for Health was put forward by Sandra Gidley, MP for Romsey, who chairs the All Party Eye Health Group.

Responding to this development, NCPTA spokesperson Laura Warren said: 'There is an expectation that all children have an equal opportunity to receive vision screenings, but without any data how do we know how many children's eyes have been screened?'