Comment : Talk to the hand

It wasn't just the poor souls at Lloyds TSB who were working last Bank Holiday Monday, there was also a flurry of activity at the Department of Health's press office.

It was sneaking out health minister Rosie Winterton's missive on the review of general ophthalmic services (see News, page 5). Patients could have their eye problems monitored at their local opticians rather than in hospital, under plans announced today, it read. The release went on to say that primary care trusts would be allowed to spend their cash to allow optical practices to provide regular check ups rather than a hospital - all in the name of patient choice, naturally.

No one can argue with the idea of a review to see how the structure of GOS may be reorganised to fit in with a modernised NHS. The review will go further, removing the pressure from secondary care through the use of primary, the management of long-term and age-related conditions, the role of DOs in the NHS. All those things the profession has been asking for.

But the way in which the Government has gone about things has upset most of the optical bodies. Driven by its patient-led mantra, the DoH says it will conduct the review early in 2006 and will ask the public what it wants to make sure services are better tailored to patient needs.

The optical bodies, if mentioned at all, come well down the list of stakeholders to be consulted and the timing of the announcement has aroused suspicions that once again optometry is being treated with less respect than the doctors, dentists and pharmacists.

Whether the breast-beating by the trio of trade body bosses is the right response is questionable. Among their number is one ex-MP, one former party official and an until recently high-ranking civil servant fresh out of the Department of Health. If together they can't read the Whitehall tea-leaves, who can? Perhaps the issue is, once again, the Government faced by a forest of associations, federations and organisations decides to talk to none.