Simon Jones: Waiting game

Research carried out by dentist chain Portman Dental Care has highlighted worrying levels of ‘DIY dentistry’ during lockdown. The findings revealed that people in the UK had gone as far as bursting abscesses, pulling out loose teeth, cementing their own crowns and filling teeth with superglue and baking powder, while dental practices in England and Scotland have been closed.

Mercifully, that optical practices have been on hand to deal with eye health emergencies during lockdown has meant any potential DIY eye care has been one less problem to worry about. But the public’s reluctance to visit A&E and GP surgeries for urgent care through fear of contracting Covid-19 means there could be a problem looming large in the form of undiagnosed eye conditions that people have simply ‘put up with.’ How many patients have you seen in the past for routine eye tests have nursed some sort of visual decline for weeks and months?