Moneo writes: Don't panic!

It appears that the NHS is about to undergo fundamental restructuring. For optometrists who have just gone through re-registration on ophthalmic lists, this may seem bad news. Judging from the comments appearing in the optical press and mail-bases about the changes to the general ophthalmic services framework, it would appear that it is very bad news. However, I have to ask just how bad these changes really are?

Optometry has, for years, complained about the travesty that is currently the GOS contract and yet now that it is up for review suddenly it seems like the best thing we have ever had!

I suppose at times like this there will always be a knee-jerk reaction that tends to favour the safe haven of what you currently have rather than the potential Eden of what you may end up with. The stark fact is that optometry is a part of the NHS and the NHS is changing fundamentally.

Having read at length the Government papers on the new vision for the NHS, it becomes very clear that eye care services will have an important part to play in the new structure. However, there is no way that the current structure of GOS comes near being able to deliver modern patient-led services.

What is needed at this time is an ability to see through the initial panic of change to what lies beyond. To say that primary care trusts will plump for cheap low-rate services to save money is wrong. There is no evidence of this happening in any other service and it does not fit with the targets and requirements for PCTs on delivery of high-quality health standards.

If there is anything to fear it is that PCTs may call for higher standards of service delivery than currently happens in many high-street outlets. It is clear that in the new world of NHS eye-care services PCTs will be able to free up money from secondary care services and use it to fund optometrists in the primary care sector to deliver a much wider range of clinical services than they currently do.

To clinically-based optometrists this is the best news they will have heard in a long time. For everybody in the NHS times are changing very fast. The new reforms will mean that PCTs no longer provide services in most cases but will commission them. This provides a great opportunity for optometrists to bid for work in the eye care field. It is inevitable that someone else will tender for that work if optometrists don't.

The proposed changes in the NHS as a whole and in GOS in particular are not as frightening as early reactions would have us believe. Our leaders need to see the vision of primary care eye services and how they sit clinically within an integrated patient-led primary care health service.
Times of change are always uncertain, but I am convinced that the changes that lie ahead are both opportunistic and exciting.