• Statistics at a glance
• Eye care services
• Commissioning services
• Eye care workforce
• References

Statistics at a glance

• Primary eye care in the UK provides more than 28.5 million appointments each year. This includes sight tests, enhanced eye care services and contact lens care appointments [1]
• Secondary care provides about 9 million appointments each year [2]
• The UK has more than 16,000 optometrists, 7,000 dispensing opticians, 3,500 ophthalmologists and 1,500 orthoptists [2]. 

Eye care services

Primary eye care in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales is recognised as one of the world's most advanced eye care systems.

The bedrock of the UK eye health system is the sight test. Legislated for in the Opticians Act, it provides a universal eye health assessment, case-finding and vision correction service from which all other eye care services flow, including ophthalmology. As a result, no child or adult in the UK needs to suffer uncorrected vision or its impacts, and asymptomatic sight-threatening diseases can be detected early.

Thanks to significant advances in diagnostics, surgery and drug therapies, we can now treat and prevent many more cases of sight loss, but our health systems in all four nations are struggling to cope. This includes more than 20 people a month suffering avoidable sight loss due to delays in glaucoma care in the hospital eye service (HES) [3].

Each case of preventable sight loss due to delays in care is a serious incident. We can and must work together across the system to reduce these cases to zero and eliminate system risk. This is an ambitious but achievable goal.

Commissioning services

Opticians have provided eye care funded by the NHS since it was founded in 1948. Since 1998, healthcare planning has been increasingly devolved to each of the four nations, which is why eligibility for NHS-funded eye examinations and how much the NHS pays per patient now varies depending on where people live in the UK. 

This also explains why, for example, everybody in Scotland is eligible for an NHS-funded eye examination and benefits from a comprehensive primary eye care service. However, people who live in England, Northern Ireland and Wales might have to pay because there is no universal access to an NHS-funded primary eye care service.

The NHS in England, Scotland and Wales and the Health Service in Northern Ireland fund all eye care provided in secondary care but because of devolution, the organisations responsible for organising this care differ in each nation.

Watch these short animations to learn more about enhanced primary eye care services across the UK:

Read about eye care in:

• England
• Northern Ireland
• Scotland
• Wales

People can also choose to access eye care from ophthalmologists, optometrists and other eye care professionals privately.

Eye care workforce

Optometrists and dispensing opticians comprise the largest regulated workforce in eye care, followed by ophthalmologists and orthoptists.

Primary care optometrists are also qualified to manage a large and complex caseload. The table below provides an overview of the competencies and qualifications of primary care optometrists. 

The section below provides an overview of eye health professionals and how they are regulated.