14 June 2024

FODO member update - 14 June

This week:

• New animations - Primary eye care helps prevent sight loss
• Sight loss due to delays in care
• General election summary
• NISRA publishes primary eye care statistics
• RAF and Red Arrows pilot urges people to get sight test
• At a glance
• Health policy

New animations - Primary eye care helps prevent sight loss

Commissioners and policymakers are often unaware of the extent to which eye care providers protect and advance eye health across the UK. So, to help you explain and promote your role, FODO has launched new animations that you can share and download for free. The animations include:

• Short animations highlighting the benefits of enhanced eye care services in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales (English) and Wales (Welsh).
• Long animations setting out the benefits of using primary eye care to meet population needs, prevent sight loss and take pressure off GPs and hospital eye departments. UK-wide, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales (English) and Wales (Welsh).

You can access all these animations here. 

If you have any questions or want a specific clip from these assets, please email [email protected]. 

Sight loss due to delays in care

FODO has published a position statement on Sight loss due to delays in care and invited members to participate in discussions about enhanced primary eye care services in England. Learn more. 

General election summary

Read our short manifesto roundup, highlighting four political parties' principal points on NHS primary care, economy and tax.

The Optician features an article on sector bodies' response to the general election. FODO, the College of Optometrists, ABDO and AOP told the publication that primary eye care has the capacity and skills to help more patients and reduce pressure on hospitals. They also called for IT connectivity as a vital enabler of change.
 
The Health Foundation reports on whether the next government could repeat the successes of the 2000s in cutting waiting times by using independent sector capacity and offering patients a choice of where and how to access care. 

NISRA publishes primary eye care statistics

Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) has published 2023-24 General Ophthalmic Services (GOS) statistics for Northern Ireland. Highlights include:

• Over 467,000 health service funded sight tests and 178,000 optical vouchers
• 49,700 unique assessments by the primary eye care assessment and referral service, with nearly two-thirds of patients managed by optometrists in primary care
• 94% of the population live within five miles of an optician, with 85% living within three miles
• The health service spent £25.3 million on primary eye care, £11.2 million on sight tests.

Access the full dataset, report and infographic. 

RAF and Red Arrows pilot urges people to get sight test

A former RAF and Red Arrows pilot has told the BBC about his campaign to raise awareness about the risk of sight loss due to glaucoma. Martin Higgins told the BBC he was 30 when he attended a routine sight test that saved his sight by detecting glaucoma. While he no longer flies, he still could if he wished to because early diagnosis and treatment helped prevent vision loss. 

At a glance

• Roche unit, Novartis, and others are to face antitrust probe over eye drug, Reuters reports.
• Optician Awards 2024 open for entries. Learn more and nominate before the 30 August deadline.
• SPOKE covers the duty of candour. Read more.
• NHS England referral to treatment (RTT) data shows 613,214 incomplete pathways, with 400,974 patients seen within 18 weeks and more than 15,000 people waiting more than a year.
• PES asks providers to upload current DBS and safeguarding certificates and any accreditation certificates about their services. Read more.
• AOP uses GP prescription data and public survey data to report that 1.35 million GP appointments are for eye-related issues and that using optometrists can save many other GP appointments. It joins all sector bodies in calling for more enhanced primary eye care services. Read more.
• AOP CEO reflects on previous sector forecast to realign with consensus. Read more.

Health policy

Calls for greater investment upstream in primary care settings across the UK continue to grow this week, with RCGP Scotland, the NHS Confederation in England and NHS England's CEO all backing a shift in resources into primary and community care to help the NHS meet population needs more sustainably.  

Closer to home, in eye care, Louisa Wickham, national clinical director for eye care at NHS England, told an ophthalmology conference in Belfast that there was a "need to simplify" eye care pathways and "develop more intelligent triage processes." She added that better electronic communication and data sharing between primary and secondary care was key to unlocking eye care services' potential.