While many will believe the current general election is and will continue to be dominated by the Brexit issue the fact remains this is still a general election with all the opportunities that go with it.
At the last general election some professional bodies issued guidance to their members as to what issues were vital to them in the future, especially within the NHS. Yet again our professional bodies did not see this as relevant, believing that they know what is best for all of us and assuming we could not possibly understand the ins and outs of optical politics. While other medical professionals were armed with a plethora of questions that enabled them to hold their candidates to account post the election we had nothing.
Since then the continuing abject failures of both our so called negotiators and our professional bodies in general to make any realistic headway in modernising the General Ophthalmic Services for the UK as a whole means we need to seize the opportunity that now exists to actively campaign for what we believe to be a future for eye healthcare in the UK.
Whatever your views on whether we should be in or out of the EU the fact is that we are coming out and therefore we are at a point where it is possible to plan a completely new future in all aspects of this country. This must include a modern approach to healthcare in general and in particular for our sphere of eye healthcare. It is clear from history, both recent and over the past decades that our professional bodies are unable to make any headway. This is in main part because of their rigid insistence on sticking to a failed model of care. Linking refraction to healthcare is a failed model.
Over the years it has resulted in the relentless drive of the retail sector to turn a clinical task into a means to create retail sale and short term profit for shareholders at the long term expense of visual welfare for patients. This needs to stop. We see from certain sectors the cry for the need to change the public’s perception of our profession from that of a retail trade to one of a caring healthcare profession who should be sought out for eye healthcare solutions. And yet the relentless deluge of retail advertising bilge still dominates the daily lives of people doing nothing to change the already deeply ingrained perception of optometry as a retail trade not a healthcare profession.
I have said it before and I will repeat it now. All of us, if we care for the future visual welfare of the UK, need to get off our backsides and actively participate in shaping our future. During a general election campaign there is no better opportunity. There will be occasions when prospective candidates may well knock on your door canvassing your vote. Take the opportunity to hold these people to account. Take time out to seek out the candidates and challenge them on their vision for the future of healthcare services and, in particular, eye care services. In so called safe seats make time to meet with your candidate and arrange to challenge them to commit to engage with you post election.
This is easy to do and does not require an in depth knowledge of the political world. Now is the time when these people are most willing to engage. It would be a useful exercise to contact your representative body and request some useful questions that you could readily ask on these occasions. In the absence of any questions coming to light maybe I could suggest some for openers.
‘Why did your government (this applies to both main parties) deliberately pursue a system of healthcare that underfunded NHS sight tests? Why, when your government knew this policy was causing people to stay away from having regular eye tests therefore increasing the amount of undiagnosed eye disease and causing people to prematurely go blind, did they continue with this policy?
Why was your government ambivalent about its electorate needlessly going blind prematurely? If you are elected what specifically do you intend to do to end this disgraceful approach to eye healthcare for your constituents? Do you believe your constituents have a right to good lifelong eye sight or will you continue to support policies that will cause your constituents to be exposed to the risk of premature blindness?’
Why not invite each candidate to your practice for a one-to-one meeting and a chat over how important regular eye health checks are to prevent unnecessary premature sight loss. Why not invite members of the press to attend as well? Does this all work? Well, yes, in fact it does and there is no better time to do it than during an election campaign.
Of course you could do nothing and continue to let your future be determined by others. Those others being those who have achieved little or nothing over the past decades or those who believe optometry is first and foremost a portal to sell retail products and optometrists are nothing more than shopkeepers like the local greengrocer. I exhort you all, seize the opportunity.