Simon Jones: First things first

It’s a slight concern that optical bodies have teamed up to urge practices to show ‘willingness’ if they are selected to participate in a pilot scheme that will bring primary eye care closer to hospital services, something that has for many years been one of the sector’s main goals.

I could be reading too much into that rallying cry, but it seems strange that practices aren’t jumping at the chance to be part of this scheme. For many of those practices, it may well be a case of ‘too little, too late’ as the number willing to turn their back on NHS service provision continues to grow. It may well be that closer alignment with the NHS is now a goal of the associations rather than their members, but let’s hope that isn’t the case.