College of Optometrist meeting the challenge of eye health

I write in response to Chris Bennett’s editorial  ‘Research is great but action is better’ which challenges the sector’s associations, organisations and bodies to do more to do more to raise awareness of the role of the optical profession in identifying and dealing with eye health problems.

In representing more than 14,000 members in every optometric work-setting, the College of Optometrists regularly commissions its own research into the levels of understanding of eye health and the role of optometrists, most recently in September 2014, which routinely finds the same thing – that people say they value their eye sight above every other sense but often ignore symptoms of deteriorating vision for sometimes years on end. The picture is complicated by the public’s lack of understanding of the role that the individual professionals perform.