Home help for older eyes

Domiciliary eye care is about to get a huge boost from a new NHS-backed campaign launched this week at FODO's London headquarters.
Led by FODO and the AOP, Older Eyes aims to spearhead the message that domiciliary eye care is essential for anyone unable to visit a high street optician.
Government figures reveal that although over a million people need domiciliary eye care, 700,000 people are going without and the NHS is spending millions of pounds treating preventable falls and other vision related accidents around the home.
Older Eyes was launched on Tuesday December 7 alongside the optical profession's Code of Practice for Domiciliary Eye Care, which sets out clear regulations for professionals, carers and care home workers and encourages wider knowledge of the service.
Bob Hughes, executive director of FODO, said that there was no higher priority than public awareness of the importance of eye care.
'This campaign comes at a time when sensitivity to care for the elderly is at its highest and we want to assert the point that ethics and patient care must always come first. There is plenty of empirical evidence about the need for domiciliary eye care and we will pursue the Government until it fulfils its responsibility to deliver a domiciliary mechanism to support this care for the elderly.'
Chairman of the domiciliary eye care committee at FODO, Jayne Rawlinson, said: 'Awareness of domiciliary care is still very low but increasing awareness of the code has the potential to improve the quality of life of elderly people immensely.'
A number of charitable organisations are backing the campaign, including the RNIB, Age Concern and Help the Aged. Anita Lightstone, RNIB head of low vision and prevention, stressed the importance of a united approach for driving domiciliary eye care forward. She said: 'Most elderly people we see are over 75 and many cannot even read their medicine labels and food labels. By providing them with glasses and instructions about proper lighting in the home we can
all make a massive difference.'
A spokesperson for Help the Aged said: 'We believe this new code of practice will help deliver the highest service standards, as well as ensuring the greatest number of people possible know that domiciliary eye tests are available to those that need it. It's an essential service, especially for those older people who are housebound.'