Entrepreneur Dan Williams may be severely sight impaired, but he is totally focused on improving the skills of the UK’s optometrists and dispensing opticians to help the two million or so patients living with sight loss, a number that is expected to double over the next 30 years.
With the support of the Thomas Pocklington Trust and DOCET, Dan has teamed up with dispensing opticians Jayshree Vasani and Peter Black to deliver ‘Seeing beyond the eyes’, a six-point CET event comprising two discussion workshops, one ‘an introduction to visual impairment’, the other looking at ‘saving sight and supporting sight loss’.
Take home message
Rocket science this is not, however, delegates learned a lot. In a sometimes moving discussion, it was demonstrated how with very little effort opticians can make a tremendous difference in the lives of patients who have received the devastating news that they have irreversible sight loss.
The key take home message was that patients need emotional and practical support immediately on becoming visually impaired and cannot wait to be certified by an ophthalmologist. For that reason, depending on availability, delegates were urged to refer patients to their local sight loss charity, rehabilitation officer for the visually impaired (ROVI), or eye clinic liaison officer (ECLO) at the same time as being referred to ophthalmology to avoid any delays in support which could for example lead to them losing their job unnecessarily.
More than magnifiers
Patients of working age need urgent referral to the Access to Work scheme for formal assessment in the workplace so that the employee and employer can work together to make reasonable adjustments, funded by the government, to ensure sight loss does not equal job loss.
In this situation, opticians tend to think about low vision aids or magnifiers and, although they may be important, often the first step is adaptation of the home, utilisation of modern technology and simple inexpensive gadgets to help with daily living.
The point was well made that a patient’s local garden centre is likely to have a wider selection of magnifiers than their optician, and that low vision services are the least commissioned of all the enhanced optical services negotiated by local optical committees.
Daniel Williams said ‘I am pleased to launch our UK wide roadshow to empower optoms and opticians to see beyond the eyes, I have heard from many sight loss professionals that they don’t get many referrals from optoms and DOs. However, if these professionals are not aware of services sight loss organisations provide then it is inevitable that they won’t refer, I am on a mission to raise the profile of low vision among the optical community and ensure no patient leaves without a referral for support’
It is estimated that only 1% to 2% of practices in the UK offer low vision services despite employing highly trained dispensing opticians and optometrists who are in the ideal place to do so. With NHS services chronically underfunded and waiting lists long in many areas opticians need to work hand in hand with their local sight loss charities to the benefit of patients.
Sadly, patients who do not get the support they need are at greatly increased risk of mental illness, depression and even death. Occasionally opticians save a life through diagnosis of a brain tumour or other condition. Perhaps they could save more lives by ensuring people with sight loss receive the support they deserve and are not driven to suicide, which is tragically a real issue.
One delegate who attended, Peter Sunderland, optometrist and owner of Framed Opticians, said: ‘I found it really good actually. It was much more enjoyable than the usual run of the mill CET lectures.
‘I think where it won was that inside of all is us, I believe that we had the clinical skills, and knowledge that LV patients need us to have, and actually, speaking for myself, the majority of the social and care side I knew also, however, that has a tendency to be put on a back burner in practice. It’s good to have it brought to the front again.’
To book your place search Seeing Beyond the Eyes here.