Simon Jones: Time to give something back

Optometrists don’t always have the best bedside manner. We know this to be the case from projects carried out by the Macular Society and the Optical Consumer Complaints Service on how an AMD diagnosis is communicated to patients, who spoke of being told they have AMD and being ushered out of the consulting room to make way for the next sight test.

A diagnosis of AMD, or any other condition or disease that can cause visual impairment, is a hammer blow for most, if not all patients. That point in time is critical for putting the patient on the right trajectory, because if they aren’t, we see research like that conducted by Fight for Sight and the Vision Foundation, which shows the blind and visually impaired are three times more likely to experience loneliness (In Focus, page 7).