Optometry 'has key role to play in the future of primary care'

Optometry has a key role to play in the future of primary eye care but the future NHS requires more proactivity, a holistic approach to patients and better accessibility to eye care for at risk groups delegates at the NOC heard last week.

Taryn Harding, senior programme lead, primary care strategies NHS England, in her keynote address on the  themes from the Call to Action provided some early findings for delegates and highlighted the priorities for the NHS going forward.

To deliver better patient care, as outlined in the NHS's five year plan, she said local providers needed to work more closely together and more closely with local NHS structures. NHS England was committed to giving local Clinical Commission Groups greater autonomy, she said. Optometry could get involved in primary care through involvement, with other professions, in Local Professional Networks while local Health and Wellbeing Boards would concentrate on improving the general health of their local populations.