Comment: Who's minding the children?

How many more reports must we endure stating the obvious about children's eye care? Yet again (see news) we hear that children's eye care is being neglected, but I can't imagine this news comes as a shock to anyone in the profession. Kids' eye care is seen as being of great importance to parents although one in 10 can't remember when, so presumably if, their child last went for an eye exam. People need educating.

Reading the College of Optometrists' eye health report further shows that 16 per cent of parents thought their child's eyes were last tested, possibly screened, at school. The National Health Service seems complicit in this failure of children's eye care. The NHS constitution recommends that children should have an eye exam in their first year of school. So the NHS has ticked its responsibility box. If any of my three children had an eye exam at school I certainly do not recall being told. Eye care certainly wasn't in the red books used to chart their progress as infants and I have never been asked if they had had an eye exam by anyone in the wider NHS.