Excellent education, missed political opportunity

On the day that George Osborne continues on his path to pave the way for large pre-election tax cuts by slashing funding and services, it is a useful time to remember that, just as the current changes to education and proposed health care changes offer great opportunity for our profession, they also still are a potential wedge in the door for a privatised future.

Excessive centralised spending may have contributed to our current state, but insidious privatisation will always result in some groups less attractive to profitweering being left short of service. Moves currently under way to highlight the services optometrists can provide, with a high degree of skill and with considerable potential cost saving to, for example, local eye hospital units are to be commended (we ran a piece on the Croydon scheme last week, for example). GP consortia need to know about these schemes and their benefits.