High street optics has whole-heartedly backed a new report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Eye Health and Visual Impairment, and with good reason.
Soon after its release last week, the Optical Confederation once again stressed that moving non-emergency services into high-street optical practices could solve the crisis of overburdened hospital eye departments.
The case has been made for some time now, but See the Light: Improving capacity in NHS eye care in England has rounded up evidence from across the sector and tabled concrete recommendations with the Department of Health.
Well known members of the APPG, chaired by MP Jim Shannon, included co-chair Lord Low of Dalston and Lord Blunkett. Their recommendations were backed up by optical bodies who recognised the need for urgent reform and launched at a Parliamentary reception for MPs last week.
The Optical Confederation pointed out that each month more than 20 patients were losing their sight due to appointment delays.
It made a direct plea to the Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt ‘to take immediate action to end the delays and reduce avoidable sight loss’.
OC chair Fiona Anderson said: ‘All eye experts are agreed this is an avoidable crisis and that the current eye health system is failing patients on grand scale. All that is needed is positive leadership and decisive action to end this appointment lottery.
‘Moving routine and non-emergency eye health services into optical practices will allow the hospital sector to concentrate on the most urgent and complex cases and reduce avoidable sight loss.’
Proof of failings
The APPG’s report, first announced in July last year, included an inquiry into capacity issues in eye care that gathered evidence from 557 patients and 111 organisations.
There were almost 7.6 million ophthalmology appointments in 2016/17 in England, which had increased by more than 10% over the past four years.
However, just over half had experienced delays and 77% of patients said this caused them anxiety or stress. More than half felt it had a negative impact on their day-to-day life.
Patients also complained about long waiting times, problems securing appointments, a lack of continuity in their care, and poor communication from the clinic.
Among the report’s recommendations was for NHS England to review the National Tariff for ophthalmology which currently seriously disadvantaged some patients with glaucoma, wet AMD and diabetic retinopathy who required follow up appointments.
‘Services are delaying and cancelling time-critical appointments, resulting in some patients not receiving sight saving treatment and care when they need it. As a result people are experiencing avoidable sight loss, fear, loss of independence and impaired well-being. This is unacceptable,’ the report stated.
Other recommendations included the establishment of a national target to ensure patients requiring follow up appointments were seen in time, and urgently implementing IT-connectivity between community optometry and the wider NHS.
Together with Locsu, the OC offered ‘to help in any way they can in implementing these recommendations at national or local level’.
Paul Morris, Specsavers’ director of professional advancement, was at the Parliamentary launch along with Specsavers co-founder Dame Mary Perkins.
He said: ‘We very much support the APPG’s call for urgent action on eye health to deal with current demand and plan for future need.
‘In particular we welcome the focus on the need for service redesign and the recognition of the role that local optometrists can play right now in alleviating the pressure hospitals are under.
‘There are already some great examples of optometrists providing advanced eye care services on behalf of the NHS in accessible locations in the community. Many Specsavers stores are involved in such schemes, including glaucoma referral refinement, management of ocular hypertension and cataract care as well as the management of minor eye conditions such as conjunctivitis and red eye.
‘Together with RNIB we will continue to champion the role of optometrists in preventing avoidable sight loss by providing eye care in the community.’
Meanwhile, the Royal College of Ophthalmologists endorsed all 16 recommendations of the report and said the crisis had been going on for too long.
Mr Mike Burdon, RCOphth president, said at the Westminster launch: ‘The only disappointing aspect of this report is that it has been necessary to produce it at all. Failure to stop the continuing crisis in eye care is no longer an option. This crisis is not new and has been discussed at a national level many times in the past.
‘This report includes personal testimony from people directly affected by the lack of capacity within eye care services, and it is entirely right that they are central to why we are asking for recognition of the crisis. But it is also the patients’ clinician that is working under extreme pressures. I have personally experienced, on many occasions, my ability to deliver high quality care being compromised by a system that is overwhelmed and which causes potential or actual loss of vision, and I am not alone. This is devastating for patients and soul destroying for clinicians’.
Mr Burdon also expressed confidence that the release of this landmark report would not be lost in the mists of time.
He added: ‘Today is the 6th of June, a date that already lives in history as D Day, the day the Allies began the liberation of Europe. Hopefully, at some not too distant future time, it will also be remembered as the day that politicians and the Department of Health started taking action to protect the sight of the nation.’
To read the See the Light report in full visit https://tinyurl.com/yd4a6kn7