In Focus: Raising awareness

This year’s National Eye Health Week (NEHW) will take place between September 21 and 27 and will provide a range of resources practitioners can use to raise awareness of ocular health with their patients. Organised by the charity Eye Health UK, the annual event is a promotion of the importance of eye care practitioners in keeping up the nation’s general health and comprises messaging campaigns focused on different aspects of eye health.

Coronavirus and the problems that the resultant lockdown caused have impacted what this year’s NEHW will focus on and how its messages will be delivered. Delays in patients seeking treatment during lockdown and the current reduced capacity in optical practices has prompted NEHW’s organisers to prioritise a message that calls for patients who are experiencing problems with their vision or eye health to seek help from their local eye care practitioner.