Minister extends pilots

Pilot projects for managing cataract, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration and low vision are to be extended to four additional regions in England.

Speaking at the Vision 2005 conference in London this week, health minister Rosie Winterton said that the Government had already invested £4m in eight pilot projects to test out the new care pathways developed by the National Eyecare Services Steering Group. These would now be extended to four new sites: Northumberland, Hartlepool, Brighton & Hove, and Lincolnshire. 

Winterton explained that the aim was to achieve more responsive services, closer to patients' homes, to reduce bureaucracy and make it easier for clinicians to provide integrated care. '[The pathways] encourage closer working relationships between ophthalmologists in the hospital sector, optometrists and dispensing opticians in primary care, social care professionals and the voluntary sector.

'The lessons from these pilots can be spread across the whole of the NHS and the cataract pathway is already being implemented,' she said, adding that the pathways had been issued as commissioning guidance for primary care trusts in partnership with local social services.

It is 11 months since the health minister unveiled the £4m programme to tackle chronic eye disease in a series of pilot projects which started last year.

Glaucoma funding went to Greater Peterborough Primary Care Partnership, North Birmingham PCT, and East Devon PCT (see panel); low vision pilots were started in Barking, Dagenham & Havering PCT, Sutton, Merton & Wandsworth PCT, and Gateshead PCT; age-related macular degeneration investment went to Brighton & Hove City PCT; and all three pathways were being piloted by Waltham Forest PCT.

At this week's Vision 2005, Winterton also outlined the Government's strategy for raising standards of service for diabetics and older people with developing sight problems.  
alison.ewbank@rbi.co.uk