Chris Bennett: Taking matters into our own hands

January can be a bit of a depressing month so it was good to see a positive step being taken to get high street opticians involved with glaucoma monitoring in the community (7 Days, page 4).

At last year’s Optrafair Newmedica and the Local Optical Committee Support Unit (Locsu) announced their agreement to set up a blueprint community care contract around cataract follow up. This was a major step forward in engaging high street-based retail optical practices in secondary care.

The latest announcement signals the intention to create a similar pathway for stable glaucoma monitoring. The significance of the move should not be underestimated. Not because of the work being undertaken but for the way in which optics has taken matters into its own hands. This is nothing short of a unilateral declaration of intent in the face of government and NHS inaction.