NHS patients in England continue to experience unacceptable delays in accessing hospital eye care services, resulting in avoidable sight loss due to delays in care. These cases of sight loss are 100% avoidable.

The NHS urgently needs to reform the hospital outpatient model of eye care to address this issue. Simply doing more of the same will not achieve this. The NHS must rebalance NHS investment, so that more is done in cost-effective primary eye care settings, closer to home and out of hospital. 

The challenge  

GP and hospital eye departments are under unsustainable pressure. As a result, people are waiting too long for essential eye care and suffering sight loss that is 100% preventable. 

The opportunity  

By focusing on better meeting individual patient needs and working together, we can end avoidable sight loss due to delays in care. 

Quick wins  

Primary eye care is delivered by highly qualified and regulated clinical optometrists and dispensing opticians using advanced diagnostics tools and techniques. We can ease pressures on GP surgeries and hospital eye departments by working with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England to deliver:

1. Frictionless digital connectivity between primary and hospital eye care services.  
2. Enhanced primary eye care services in all communities. An initial focus on urgent eye care and glaucoma services will immediately reduce pressure on hospitals and help prevent avoidable sight loss.  

Work with us to deliver sustainable change; email [email protected].

Read more about our goals in Principles and priorities for primary eye care.  

Related resources

• Eye care services in England
• Eye care services in Northern Ireland
• Eye care services in Scotland
• Eye care services in Wales

June 2024