Chris Bennett: With great power comes great responsibility

There’s so much talk of governance, regulation and standards that it’s all too easy to overlook the fact that every day people entrust their health, their lives, to optometrists.

There can be no more sobering and graphic explanation of exactly what this means to patients, and their families, than the one provided by Jo and Ian Barker (see In Focus).

As the mother of Vinnie Barker, who died aged eight in 2012, she describes how her world fell apart at his loss. Initially Vinnie’s death was unexplained but as his parents searched for answers they discovered that, although asymptomatic, a retinal photograph taken under the care of optometrist Honey Rose, should have led to an emergency referral which could have saved his life.