Thousands of elderly people with eye disease have been found to receive poor NHS services.
A new report by the Macular Society and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists showed 11.9 per cent of consultants said their service for patients with retinal conditions was ‘poor’ while 1.4 per cent described it as ‘very poor’.
It was reported that 69.4 per cent of the doctors who responded said shortages of medical and support staff were a cause of the problems facing eye clinics. Nearly half said hospital trust managers did not treat eye clinics as a priority.
Around 82 per cent of respondents felt that capacity could be improved by using other professionals such as optometrists to monitor patients between AMD injections.
Helen Jackman, chief executive of the Macular Society, said: ‘It is a tragedy that we now have a treatment for wet AMD and similar conditions but waiting times in clinics are getting so long that people’s sight is at risk.’