Eye Health: National Strategy

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Carolyn Harris in the Chair]

10:44

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of a national eye health strategy.

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris, and I am pleased to have secured today’s debate. Let me begin by placing on the record my thanks to the many organisations that have sent through their briefings and shared their knowledge and expertise, including the Association of Optometrists, the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, Specsavers, SeeAbility and the Royal National Institute of Blind People, which have all supported my National Eye Health Strategy Bill as well.

There is no question but that we need the Government to introduce an eye health strategy in England, because there is an emergency in eye care. Huge backlogs, which were apparent before the pandemic, are leading to people unnecessarily losing their sight. The annual economic cost of sight loss is currently estimated at £37.7 billion. An estimated 2 million people are living with sight loss in the UK, and anyone can be affected by it. As Members, we will all have constituents who have been or are being affected, because 250 people begin to lose their sight every day, with a shocking 21 people a week losing their vision due to a preventable cause. On top of that, we know that 50% of all sight loss is avoidable. We should all be asking why so many people are needlessly losing their sight or going blind.

The backlog for ophthalmology appointments in England is one of the largest in the NHS, with over 630,000 people on waiting lists as of 23 March this year—more than 9% of the total backlog. Ophthalmology has been the busiest NHS out-patient clinic for the last three years, with 7.5 million hospital attendances in England in 2021-22. It is shocking that eye care accounts for only 2.6% of NHS consultants and 1% of the total number of doctors.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this really important debate. She is making a significant point about capacity. Does she agree that there is a need to ensure that the long-awaited workforce plan the Government have promised pays proper attention to this area of specialism and takes account of the need to train more people as part of the provision being made for additional medical training?

[Marsha De Cordova]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and he is absolutely spot on. I will come to the workforce plan and the Government’s expectations, but he is absolutely right that it must include this specialism. There must also be an element of training and upskilling.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing such a significant debate. I recently visited Greenvale School in my constituency, which is a school for children with special educational needs and disabilities. It is one of the schools involved in the initial roll-out of the special school eye care service, and I have met the ophthalmologists, who do absolutely brilliant work. Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Government end this service in the summer they will be neglecting children’s eye care, and a huge responsibility and onus will be placed on families?

[Marsha De Cordova]

My hon. Friend makes a really crucial point about special schools and about ensuring there is enough capacity to support children who have complex needs with sight loss. What is really troubling is that, in many instances, sight loss is not always picked up, so having specialist ophthalmologists in schools is crucial. There absolutely should be no way of reducing that provision—in fact, we need to build capacity.

To respond to the current crisis in eye healthcare, the Government must commit to a national eye health strategy for England, as set out in my Bill. The strategy would include measures to improve eye health outcomes, remove the postcode lottery of care, reduce waiting times, improve patient experiences, increase the capacity and skills of the workforce, and make more effective use of data, research and innovation. An eye strategy would ensure that, regardless of where someone lives, they can have access to good-quality eye healthcare, which would address eye health inequalities and ensure that there is more equity of access to eye care among different communities and people who are more at risk of sight problems but who may not be accessing NHS sight tests.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for making such an important speech. I pay tribute to the staff in the eye health department at St Thomas’s Hospital in my constituency. Figures show that 650,000 people are on waiting lists in England and that 37% have waited for more than 18 weeks. If the Government had a strategy, would that not address the postcode lottery my hon. Friend highlighted?

[Marsha De Cordova]

I thank my hon. Friend, who highlights the fantastic eye care department at St Thomas’s Hospital. She is absolutely right: my strategy already sets out how to address the backlogs in eye healthcare, and the Government could just say, “Yes, we are going to take it on, reduce those backlogs and address the workforce issues.”

Ensuring that we have equity of eye health must also include people who are homeless and those with learning disabilities, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) mentioned. A strategy would focus on five areas. The first is the eye health and sight loss pathway, which outlines the care and support for those diagnosed with loss of vision. A pathway would focus on the physical and emotional impact of being diagnosed with sight loss. Research has shown that blind and partially sighted people are likely to experience poor mental health outcomes, such as depression and anxiety, in their lifetimes. As part of the pathway, more emphasis should be placed on the provision of non-clinical community support, which would complement the work of community optometrists, ophthalmologists in hospitals and rehabilitation officers. Where is the plan to improve non-clinical and community support as part of the eye health pathway?

The second area the strategy would aim to improve is collaboration between primary and secondary care, and it would emphasise integrated care systems to ensure timely and accurate referrals. Demand for eye care services is expected to increase by 40% over the next 20 years, so we need to pay more attention to joining up care to meet future demand. Some of the burden on hospitals from that increased demand could be eased through more investment in high street community optometrists and by changing the way services are commissioned, to make more use of resources and infrastructure in our communities.

Two million people attend NHS accident and emergency services each year with an injury to or disease of the eye, and over 65% of those cases could have been treated in primary care optometry, which is not only more accessible but saves money—it costs less. Despite that, only 23 out of the 42 integrated care boards commission a minor eye condition service, or MECS, consistently. Five have no MECS provision at all—patients must attend a hospital eye service either via their GP or A&E. That is unfair and inequitable, and it is a waste of NHS resources to have patients go to A&E when they could access something in the community, which is easier for the patient, improves outcomes and saves us money.

[Janet Daby]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does she agree that the Government party claim to take care of the public purse, but in this case they are clearly not doing that at all? They are actually doing the opposite—wasting money from the public purse—because they are not making sure that the funds address the right issue.

[Marsha De Cordova]

Again, my hon. Friend makes an intervention that is 100% accurate. We obviously have to ensure that spending is done effectively and properly, and ensuring that resources are allocated in the community and alleviate pressures on hospitals will obviously lead only to better outcomes and savings.

At the most recent meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on eye health and visual impairment, ophthalmologist Dr Seema Verma from St Thomas’s Hospital spoke about the importance of MECS and locally commissioned optometry clinics in south-east London, which prevented 32% of referrals from being sent to hospital eye care services. If my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) does not mind, I would very much like to invite the Minister to visit the eye department at St Thomas’s and the MECS community service, if he has not already done so.

Better joined-up care requires spending on infrastructure. Improved IT connectivity for two-way transfer of patient and clinical data would enable better patient care, and improved use of clinical skills and facilities in primary care, enabling more patients to be seen and treated closer to home. Everyone can get the theme here: community, community, community.

The eye care sector has been championing a single national electronic eye care referral system or EECR—there are so many acronyms—that would facilitate direct optometry to ophthalmology referrals, without people having to go through their GP. That would reduce the administrative burden on GP services, devolving some of the lower-risk cases to optometry and addressing unwarranted variations in referral and follow-up pathways.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again, and she really is making a powerful speech. She made the point about the single route of referral in that relationship between primary and secondary care. Does she recognise that that is not only better for patients but—reflecting the comment my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) made a moment ago—for the NHS, saving it an estimated £2 million a year?

[Marsha De Cordova]

That is exactly the point. Joining up services, which is what my Bill seeks to do, would essentially save the state money, which is crucial.

I have mentioned devolving services and supporting the pathway. When the Minister responds, will he provide an update on where the Government are up to in creating this referral and joined-up pathway system, or EECR, to be specific?

The third area of the strategy would be workforce expansion. There is a significantly uneven distribution of ophthalmology workforces across England, and a quarter of the profession is nearing retirement age. That is extremely concerning, because nearly 80% of eye care units already do not have enough consultants to meet current demand, with over 50% finding it more difficult to recruit for consultant vacancies. In the last year alone, 65% of units had to use locums to fill those consultant vacancies. What do the Government plan to do to respond to this workforce crisis? They say they are bringing forward their plan, but when will it be published?

At the APPG meeting in April, we addressed the challenges of the eye care workforce. Speakers from the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, the College of Optometrists and the Association of Optometrists all made strong recommendations and put forward credible solutions. Again, I would be happy to facilitate a meeting if the Minister is yet to meet those trade bodies. He would hear first hand their strong and credible recommendations, which seek to address some of the workforce challenges.

The Government must make better use of existing workforces while expanding capacity to meet future needs, including by adopting Labour’s call to double medical school places to 15,000 a year. That needs to be complemented with investment in training for wider eye care and multidisciplinary teams and with an expansion in the number of non-medical roles.

The fourth area would be health intelligence and data.  For too long, population data has not been utilised effectively to pinpoint the location of need and the places where opportunities for change can be found. A strategy would solve that by focusing on robust data collection to inform decisions and improve the delivery of service. The UK has no national data to identify people at risk of sight loss. There is potentially a case for looking at how registration for the certificate of vision impairment system works to see whether it could be used to map out an evidence base to show where people with sight loss are living. The lack of data means there is likely to be unmet need in the system, with some people who experience visual impairment not being treated, and some developing conditions that could be avoided if they were treated earlier—as I said earlier, 50% of all sight loss is avoidable.

Without that data, we do not know whether public expenditure on eye health is meeting people’s needs, because that expenditure is not based on any evidence. Where there are still no treatments for certain conditions, the Government should increase spending on eye research, which gets a fraction of the investment it desperately needs. According to UK Research and Innovation, the Government, charities and other public bodies invested £1.4 billion in medical research in 2018, but only 1.5% of that was invested in eye research. To put that in context, only £9.60 was spent on research for each person affected by sight loss in the UK. That is worrying, given that 250 people begin to lose their vision every day.

The fifth area would be improving public awareness. As I said earlier, 2 million people each year turn up to A&E or try to get a GP appointment for a problem that could be dealt with by a community optometrist. A strategy would involve campaigns on the importance of maintaining good eye health, educating the public on the difference between eye screening and eye tests, and improving signposting to where people need to go for help.

England is the only country in the UK without an eye health strategy. Strategies can deliver positive outcomes, as has been the case in Scotland. In England, there are health strategies for other conditions, so why not for eyes? The benefits would transform lives, alleviate pressure on health services and reduce economic costs. Our goal should be to ensure that no one loses their sight unnecessarily. Most people in the Chamber know that I have a condition called nystagmus. I have been living with my sight loss all my life, but those who come to sight loss later in life face even more barriers and challenges.

I would like the Minister to address the following questions. He will get fed up of me saying this, but why will the Government not commit to an eye health strategy for England? Will they appoint a Minister—it could be this Minister—whose sole responsibility is eye healthcare? What are they doing to ensure that every integrated care board has a MECS and that their commissioning is consistent with that of the 23 that already have such services? Five ICBs have no form of MECS provision at all, so what will the Minister do to ensure there is consistency in our communities? When will the Government publish their overdue long-term workforce plan? Will there be a focus on ophthalmology? As I have highlighted, only 1.5% of the £1.4 billion going into medical research involves eyes, so will the Government increase spending on eye health research?

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that if they wish to speak in the debate, they should bob. I call Dr Rupa Huq.

14:49

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) on a stunning speech and securing a debate on such an important subject.

Visual impairment is, in many ways, illustrative of so many of the problems that the wider NHS faces, but it is often underacknowledged and goes unnoticed. The Minister responded to my Adjournment debate on Monday, when I went through a lot of documents from our local ICB and council on the NHS. I was scouring them for mention of eye disease, but it did not seem to be anywhere in them—it tends to fall off the radar.

My hon. Friend gave some powerful statistics. There are 2 million people living in this country with sight loss today, and it is expected to be 2.7 million people by 2030 and 4 million by 2050. There are 600,000 people with age-related macular degeneration. Every six minutes someone is told they are going blind, and every day 250 people start to lose their sight in the UK. Some of these problems are intrinsic to our health service, such as the lack of joined-up-ness that she talked about between primary and secondary care, the fact that services are a postcode lottery and the pre-existing backlogs that were worsened by covid.

With 11 million out-patient appointments a year, ophthalmology is the biggest out-patient speciality in the NHS, yet it is forgotten and is often a Cinderella service. Locally, diabetic eye disease, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration are all big issues. In Ealing, type 2 diabetes is 3.5 times more prevalent among black, Asian and minority ethnic populations than the wider population. The level of diabetes is very high in our borough, at 8.4%, and it is even higher next door in Harrow, at 9.5%—nearly one in 10 people. Diabetic eye disease is a consequence of that, and it is sight-threatening, as my hon. Friend said.

The odd thing is that primary level optometry is private practice. Specsavers is the biggest provider in the country—it sent us all a briefing for the debate—and there is Boots. In Ealing, there are also great local independents such as Eyes on the Common and Hynes Optometrists. But there seems to be a mismatch with the eye hospitals. I was lucky enough to go to Central Middlesex Hospital recently and be shown around its eye department. I also went to the A&E at Western Eye Hospital last year when I had shingles, which was interesting to see. It was a very long wait of half a day on the weekend. They were very good, but I am sure we could join all these things up better, because there seems to be a disconnect for things such as referrals.

That is why I support and am a signatory to my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill, the National Eye Health Strategy Bill. Having a national eye strategy is crucial to reversing a situation that has seen eye care become a Cinderella service. It was a step forward when the first ever national clinical director for eye care, Louisa Wickham, was appointed last year, but unlike with other big issues—for example, I talked on Monday about mental health, dementia and cardiovascular issues—there is no national plan for eye care. It is hit and miss, as my hon. Friend says, and the lockdowns have exacerbated all the waiting lists.

I want to flag the work of my constituent, Judith Potts. For seven years, she has been a one-man band with her charity Esme’s Umbrella, looking at the unusual—actually, it is more prevalent than we think—Charles Bonnet syndrome. The disease affects people who are losing their sight, and they see vivid hallucinations of often quite specific images—they can be swirly patterns and shapes, and they can also be gargoyles, world war one soldiers or boys in sailor suits. When that was described to me, I had never heard anything like it. We have had two receptions just across from this Chamber, in the Jubilee Room, for Esme’s Umbrella, which is now becoming constituted as a proper charity.

It was Judith’s mother, Esme, who suffered from Charles Bonnet syndrome. Judith has managed to persuade the World Health Organisation to recognise it as a condition in the ICD-11—the eleventh edition of the “International Classification of Diseases”—but there is no training for it at medical school and it is seen as a side effect of sight loss. It is estimated that the number of people who suffer from the condition is in six figures—some estimates say there could be a million sufferers in this country—yet people do not even know what to google because it is so unheard of. There are no pathways, no magic pill that can make it disappear and most people have never heard of it. More research is needed to cure the condition and to help people cope with it. There is a job to be done.

“Coronation Street” has played a big role, with the actor Richard Hawley, who was at our last reception in the autumn—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea was there as well—playing the character Johnny Connor, who is a sufferer. That has done something to put the condition on the map, but I appeal to the Minister to recognise Charles Bonnet syndrome as part of a comprehensive eye strategy. Proper research needs to be funded. The trustees of the Esme’s Umbrella charity, as it has now been constituted, are highly respected people from Great Ormond Street, Moorfields and the Francis Crick Institute. They are all top consultants, but as the condition is not a recognised thing, they have to do the research on the side. That is not satisfactory. We need to persuade people, take them with us and fund the proper research.

In March, the Health Service Journal reported on a survey carried out by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, which found that independent providers—my hon. Friend referred to this too—are having a negative effect on patient care. I mentioned this on Monday, so I hope Members will forgive me if they have a sense of déjà vu. Patient choice sounds good and we have backlogs that need clearing, but the independent sector creams off all the stuff aimed at cutting the cataract waiting list, which is low-risk, routine work—and I have to say that those patients are usually from majority white populations—when it could do out-patient appointments or follow-ups too. The NHS is left with serious and costly cases of high complexity, in which patients—typically BAME ones, I have to say—are at risk of going blind.

The Royal College of Ophthalmologists found significant staff shortages in NHS ophthalmology capacity. That is set to worsen in coming years unless immediate action is taken. Seventy-six per cent.—over two thirds of NHS eye units in the UK—do not even have the consultants to meet current demand and 80% have become more reliant on non-medical or allied professionals in the past 12 months. The capacity is missing. The equation has gone all wrong. Twenty-five per cent. of consultants plan to leave the ophthalmology workforce in the next five years. That includes those planning to retire, but we also have a mismatch, with doctors being trained in hospitals where the easy cataract stuff is gone. They are meant to get their teeth into that first and then do the complex stuff; it has all gone the wrong way.

As well as the training issue, there is an issue with the sustainability of the NHS. Tackling the backlogs is a priority, but so is sustainability and training in our health service. Dr Evelyn Mensah, an inspirational woman at Central Middlesex Hospital, argues that the status quo is leading to the destabilisation of hospital services. The inequity that has flowed means that the foundational principle of the NHS at its launch in 1948—the whole point that it is free at the point of need—has gone wrong. In other words, if patients have the easy stuff, they will be dealt with, but if they have the sight-threatening, dangerous stuff, they languish.

Dr Mensah says that the direction of travel towards the private sector, instead of

“resourcing and supporting the NHS is undermining our comprehensive free service and will exacerbate inequality.”

She asks for additional funding to support independent recovery as, right now, private providers cherry-pick the low-risk cataract work and people are in danger of going blind if they are not seen in time. These are very uncomfortable procedures on the delicate eyeball, which is susceptible to discomfort and infection. We need to save sight, as well as the low-risk stuff. As a business case, the status quo is not good value for the taxpayer; we need to do both.

The College of Optometrists argues for more mixed-mode referrals. There are record numbers in the surgical backlog, but there are also out-patient delays with glaucoma reviews, medical retina reviews and all the follow-up stuff. Diseases such as glaucoma are silent, so it is easy to put them off forever and ever, but people’s sight is threatened; we cannot postpone these things.

We need to spread the load. The whole point of ICBs is that they are meant to provide integrated care, so let us share the load, with proper guidance. In an ideal world, the work would be universal, standardised and consistent. There would be data sharing and all the systems would be joined up at the touch of a button. We could deliver eye care in a modern way, working together and contributing to the system.

Joy Hynes from Hynes Optometrists on Northfield Avenue told me:

“I would like to understand why the urgency for controlling our increasing numbers of myopic patients is not being taken seriously. The Government has no strategy for prevention of this myopic epidemic. Myopia sadly often leads to blindness and that in itself is a problem with scant resource. Understanding the gravity of this situation we have for years been successfully running a specialist clinic for myopia management. This should not be the domain of the well off but should be available to every myopic child.”

In conclusion, we cannot rewind the clock to February 2020 overnight, but let us hope that the jolt of covid is a wake-up call to connect all the different bits of community eye care, optometry and hospitals. Let us go for diversity and inclusion in the workplace, as well as equality of outcomes, so we can join up the different systems and institute a national eye health strategy. I am so proud of my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea and her Bill. Clearing the backlog is only part of the picture. Let us go for a systemic approach with a national strategy, so that sight can be saved.

15:02

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) on securing today’s debate. She knows that I feel strongly about eye health and sight-related issues. On one hand, I am pleased to come along to support her. On the other hand, I am disappointed to be having to speak in this debate, because it was not long ago—in fact, it was 11 January last year—that we had the previous debate.

That debate, introduced by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), was on eye health and macular disease. As well as the hon. Gentleman, we heard from the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier), my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell), the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson), the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici), the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar), my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) and the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne)—and we all came to the same conclusion.

There were a lot of kind words from the Minister in that debate, and a lot of sympathy for our enthusiasm for a national eye strategy. However, I never actually heard the Minister say that she would agree to an eye strategy. That was surprising considering that, during the debate, we learned that over 2 million people currently live with sight loss, and 350,000 people are registered blind or partially sighted. We also learned that age-related macular degradation is a leading cause of blindless. That can be averted with more accessible healthcare provision. We also learned that more people suffer from macular degradation than dementia. Considering the political priority we give dementia, that seems quite shocking.

During that debate, people took the opportunity to talk about sight loss. I do not use the Chamber as a confessional, but I admit that when I first had macular degradation, I had a conversation with my wife to ask whether life would really be worth living if I lost my eyesight. That has always stayed with me. It is an important issue, and not only to me. When I first experienced the problem, I was amazed at how many constituents told me that either they or their families also had sight loss problems. It is a big issue for many people.

During the previous debate, the Minister was keen to stress the additional £2 billion provided through the elective recovery fund. She also mentioned the additional £5.9 billion of capital funding to support elective recovery diagnosis and technology. I was left mystified about how many people would actually be treated for issues relating to their sight, be it cataracts, macular degradation or anything else. A week later, on 18 January last year, I asked the Department how many cataract operations would be performed as a result of the £2 billion allocated to the NHS through the elective recovery fund. The response was:

“This information is not held centrally, as this funding will not be distributed through set allocations.”

So the answer is none.

I have asked several other questions of the Department. I was most disappointed when I realised that the Minister had no intention to introduce a national eye strategy—something that I called for in last year’s debate—so I asked the Secretary of State, straightforwardly,

“if he will introduce a national eye care strategy.”

The response was:

“There are currently no plans to introduce a national eye health strategy. However, NHS England and NHS Improvement are recruiting a National Clinical Director for Eye Care to lead improvements in eye care services.”

That came on 17 January 2022, a week after last year’s debate. If there is a national clinical director for eye care, what are their achievements so far? Will the Minister provide an update on that?

I went back to the Department on 3 March to ask why its policy is that a national eye care strategy is unnecessary. The answer was:

“Regionally based National Health Service commissioners are responsible for commissioning secondary care ophthalmology services, out of hospital services from primary eye care providers and the NHS sight testing service. These services are put in place to meet local identified needs, which vary across the country. It is therefore important to allow local areas to set their own priorities.”

I have to ask the Minister: is it the case that we will not get a national eye strategy following today’s debate?

I attended an event with the hon. Member for Battersea where the person who I thought was the eye Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), said that he would think again about a national eye strategy. I thought that this issue was probably important to him, and I asked him some questions in Parliament. I asked him for his assessment of the impact of ophthalmology waiting times on patient outcomes. I did so to try to understand whether he felt that this was an important issue and that we needed to establish a national eye strategy. His response was:

“No formal assessment has been made.”

I asked the Secretary of State yet another question:

“what assessment his Department has made of the potential economic benefits of additional funding in sight loss research.”

For Conservatives, that would be good fiscal policy, because we could ensure that people are not dependent on the state and are not a burden through increased taxation on others, but the answer came back:

“No specific assessment has been made.”

So the answer is that we simply do not know, and we are not going to get any answers by asking the Department.

I ask the Minister to say today that this is an important issue. It is important, especially for people who have gone through the process of thinking that they may lose their sight—they may even question whether it is worth living. As I said, I have certainly been through that. I would like to see greater provision, because the impact of eyesight loss and partial sightedness is huge.

[Janet Daby]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for talking about his personal experience. Among children who have special educational needs and disabilities, sight loss often goes undetected, which is why it is so important to have ophthalmology treatment within SEND schools. Does he agree that if the Government are going to introduce a national eye health strategy, that issue should be one of their priorities?

[Dr Offord]

I certainly do, as the hon. Lady would expect. The implications of having problems at an early age are much longer term, so we will find people without access to education and, ultimately, to employment, and their quality of life will certainly be much reduced if that provision is not implemented. I believe that it should be a major component of a national eye strategy.

In conclusion, I simply say to the Minister that he should make a national eye strategy his legacy, before it is too late.

15:14

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for securing this debate, which is about such an important issue. I know that the debate is about a national eye health strategy, and I agree with all the important points raised by my hon. Friend, who continues to be an inspirational campaigner on disability rights. I would go so far as to agree with all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate so far. But I want to focus on something more specific.

In April 2021, the NHS started a scheme that provided sight tests and dispensed glasses to children in special schools in the familiar surroundings of their own schools. The NHS special school eye care service was created after a shocking statistic came out: children with learning disabilities are 28 times more likely to have a sight problem than other children. Four out of five children with a severe learning disability attend a special school, and decades’ worth of studies and reports have all identified higher levels of sight problems in children who attend special schools. We found out that 40% of children in such schools need glasses, but because children have complex needs, they are often unable to get a check-up. Their behaviour makes it hard, and families are hard pressed to attend all the appointments.

[Dr Offord]

The hon. Lady is entirely correct that children with special educational needs often have sight problems, but such problems affect not just those children but children with behavioural problems. They often have behavioural problems simply because they cannot see, and so learn, in the classroom.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

The hon. Member is absolutely correct, and we know from the special school eye care service that so many pupils’ behaviour improves as a result of having glasses.

As I have already said, many people with severe learning difficulties find it very challenging to go to appointments or have their eyes examined. We have learned that attending an eye care appointment has been such a stress that 55% of children with special needs miss the appointments that they have had booked. That is not just an extra and unnecessary stress on the NHS, which certainly does not need that at the moment; it also means that the children are not getting the eye care that they need.

That is where the NHS special school eye care service comes in. It was just common sense: bringing eye care into special schools solves the problem of missed appointments and ensures that thousands of children who would have had their eyesight disability ignored get the healthcare that they deserve. That value cannot be overstated. Children with special needs have enough on their plate; if they also suffer from eyesight problems, but cannot explain what is wrong and can never get the problem checked out by a doctor, it must be awful.

Parents and special schools have praised the scheme, because school is a familiar place for children and the service is also cost effective for the NHS. It is one solution to many of the problems in eye care: it helps to get children out of hospital services, and it addresses health inequalities for this patient group for just tens of pounds. In 2015, I visited my local school for children with severe special needs, Perseid School in Morden—an all-through school for three to 18-year-olds led by the inspirational headteacher Tina Harvey, who retires after 20 years in July. I thank her on behalf of all her pupils and families and our entire community for her tireless and brilliant work in her school, which is rated outstanding by Ofsted.

At the school, I met Alyson, a mum, who told me that her daughter Ellie was getting used to eye care in the familiar environment of her school, and not having to take time out for hospital eye clinic appointments. That gave Alyson one less thing to worry about as a parent, and had greatly reduced Ellie’s anxiety. I invite the Minister to come to the school to see the work being done there; his predecessor has visited. It is important that I can show him how the scheme looks on the ground.

After the scheme was extended to 83 special schools, giving 9,000 children eye care that they might not otherwise have had, the further roll-out of the scheme was halted in August 2022 for an evaluation, which has not yet been published. The NHS now says that the scheme is just proof of concept, and that the proof-of-concept service will end in July—in two months’ time.

Parents, schools and eye care providers are absolutely gutted. More than anything, they are confused about what will happen next. There is still no sign of the evaluation, so there is a very real prospect that there will be no eye care services at all in schools after September 2023. I hope that will not be the case. I know that the Minister recently met charities and eye care bodies to hear about the service, but it still is not clear what NHS England will do.

I do not have many huge asks of the Minister today. I just want a very simple fix that will give certainty to parents. Will he publish the evaluation as a matter of urgency? If he can make sure that the evaluation is published, I have no doubt that it will provide evidence of the clinical need for such a service. Once we have the evaluation, we can start to look to the future of the scheme. I am convinced that NHS England should continue the day school service after July; I hope that he can see why that is absolutely common sense.

I conclude with a quote from a new special school, Kingsley High School, which has used the service. Reshma Hirani, assistant head, says:

“This service should be part of the NHS core offer so that it never stops. My pupils have struggled to access eye care in the community and now they have, quite rightly, something that is going to transform their lives. Well done NHS England for thinking about schools like Kingsley and our children. As a Qualified Teacher of Children and Young People with Vision Impairment I can now put in the support that children need, with the confidence that I have all the right information to hand. It really is the gift of sight.”

I reiterate that NHS England’s evaluation still has not been published. Given that there are only a few weeks before the service will have to start making staff redundant, I urge the Minister to publish the evaluation as soon as possible, so that parents, children and everyone involved has the certainty that they absolutely deserve.

15:18

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for bringing forward this debate. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) that my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea works tirelessly as a great ambassador and advocate, not just on the subject of eyesight, but for people living and working with disabilities. She has offered me lots of advice for people I work with. We all want to be exemplars, and to make sure that we give people opportunities for employment. She keeps us all on our toes, and does it with superb grace and compassion.

As my hon. Friend knows, living with sight loss from birth, and as many others find out, sight loss can be devastating—it affects work, how we travel through the world and how we interact with those around us. There is not only the physical impact, but the effect on our mental health, and on confidence, which is crucial for how we live our life. The RNIB estimates that there are more than 2 million people living with sight loss in the UK. Shockingly, at least half of that sight loss might be avoidable.

Those who have treatment for sight loss and eye conditions often find it transformative and life-enhancing; however, people with sight loss are waiting too long for that vital treatment, with more than 24,000 ophthalmology patients waiting over a year for treatment in 2022. Last year, the then Minister stated, as we have heard, that the national eye care recovery and transformation programme remained a top priority. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) has said, it does not seem to be the case locally in our plans that it is a top priority, so we would appreciate an update from today’s Minister.

Findings from the recent workforce census of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists found that 63% of eye units estimate that it will take at least a year to clear their backlogs, and a quarter estimate that it will take over three years. As we have heard, the demand for ophthalmology services has risen rapidly, and is set to increase again by 40% over the next 20 years. The current estimated economic cost of sight loss is around £36 billion, as my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea said. We really cannot afford not to address that.

Prevention is key. The role of optometrists in primary care is essential in supporting good eye health. Regular eye tests can help to catch and treat conditions such as glaucoma, which is the leading cause of irreversible blindness; however, as we have heard, the report last year showed that 17.5 million adults had not had their eyes tested in the past two years, as recommended. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea spoke about the importance of raising awareness of eye health by creating better public health messaging. Again, we need an update from the Minister on that.

I praise the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) for making a really important point about macular degeneration. Many people will recognise that feeling. It is something that I have in my own family: people feel that they do not know what it will mean for them. I pay tribute to my constituent, a former Member of Parliament for Bristol West, Valerie Davey, who has macular degeneration. When she was a Member of Parliament 15 years ago, she felt that perhaps she could not do the job. The then Secretary of State Lord Blunkett said to her very firmly, “I have not campaigned for services for disabilities all this time for you to give up because of that. We need to find ways to support you.” She continues to be a great supporter of me and a very avid campaigner, keeping me well up to date with the issues around macular degeneration.

Two thirds of eye units are finding it more difficult to retain consultants and over half are finding it harder to recruit. It is not just about consultants. Non-medical staff are indispensable in eye units, and that has to be recognised if we have a strategy. That really is the key question for the Minister: whether the workforce plan, if we ever see it, will include a commitment to fund the workforce that we need to meet patient demand.

The next Labour Government will take eye health seriously. Sticking plasters are simply not enough. We need a Government who will grasp the root causes of the staffing crisis in the NHS, which is why we will end tax breaks for non-doms and use the money raised to expand our NHS workforce. The next Labour Government will train a new generation of doctors, nurses and midwives to treat patients on time again, doubling medical school places to ensure that we have the workforce that we need, including across ophthalmology.

It is essential that everyone can access the right care when and where they need it. Moving more care to the community will help to support those suffering from sight loss, focusing on the provision of non-clinical community support to complement the work of community optometrists, ophthalmologists in hospitals and rehab officers. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden made an excellent point about the specialist service that we need for children and those with special needs particularly.

If opticians could refer patients to eye specialists themselves, patients would be seen faster and it would free up time in A&E and GP surgeries. As an NHS manager before coming to this place, I was involved in setting up a project to do just that over 10 years ago. It grieves me somewhat to see that across the country such schemes are still not happening, because we need to use all our resources and capacity across the NHS and private health services to bring down waiting lists in the short term. Ophthalmology is an area where the private sector can do more to address waiting lists for some of those procedures. That can skew the rest of the system, but commissioners need to take note of that. We need to make full use of that capacity, as we did when we were in Government last time.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea said, data is vital to ensure that we are targeting strategies to address the problem in the right places. Minor eye conditions services provide eye care for patients who have had sudden changes to their eyes, but only 23 integrated care systems commission them, with five having none at all. What is the Minister doing to address disparities in eye care across the country? Many of my constituents are affected by sight loss. They and people around the country need to have reassurances from the Government that the Government are doing everything possible to address the concerns of healthcare leaders, staff and patients. We all welcome the thoughts of the Minister on the matter.

15:24

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O'Brien)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I must begin by thanking the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for bringing forward this very important debate. She is a very strong advocate for improving eye health in England. Likewise, I thank other hon. Members who made important points in the debate, including the hon. Members for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord). I will try to address the points that have been made as I go through my speech.

I am haunted by the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon about wondering whether life would be worth living. To address the question directly: yes, of course. This is a hugely important issue for us, for exactly the reasons he set out. As the Minister for both primary and secondary eye care services, I reassure the whole House that I am working actively on the issue.

Since we last debated the topic in December, I met with the hon. Member for Battersea to discuss how we can make progress on all those things. Although I am unable to say exactly in what form the output of that work will come out, I reassure her that we are looking at pace at absolutely all the different issues she raised, both previously with me directly and in this debate.

I also met with Louisa Wickham, the new national clinical director for eye care—the lady who my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon asked about—to talk about NHS England’s eye care transformation programme. To address another question that was raised, I also met directly with the eye care sector, which talked passionately about how it is ready to deliver more out-of-hospital care to alleviate secondary care pressures. That is an exciting opportunity that we are keen to seize.

Although it is not the main topic of today’s debate, the future of sight testing in special schools is a very important area of concern to a number of hon. Members present, and to me as well. I recently convened a roundtable of experts to discuss the future of sight testing in special schools, and I will continue to engage with NHS England on their proposals for the future. I hope that it will not be too long before I am able to update the House on that.

I am absolutely seized by the arguments I have heard today—and earlier—from the hon. Members for Lewisham East and for Mitcham and Morden, and from the experts and people in special schools who have seen the advantages of the service. I join the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden in paying tribute to Tina Harvey for her work. Some of the people in those special schools are just totally inspirational.

[Janet Daby]

I thank the Minister for seeking to address special educational needs ophthalmology in schools. Can he say when the outcome of the roundtable on what the future will be like for ophthalmology in schools is expected? It is due to come to an end in July but, in actual fact, in previous years there were promises that it would be a long-term service.

[Neil O'Brien]

I expect that to be something we can come back on imminently.

I will come back on to the main topic of today’s debate. While I acknowledge that we must go much further to address the current and future capacity challenges facing eye care services, I highlight some of the excellent work already being done by doctors and nurses across the NHS. Our existing prevention and early detection measures are already playing a key role in preventing avoidable sight loss, and there has been progress over recent years.

One of the most important things we can do in terms of prevention is take action to reduce obesity and smoking, which are both massive risk factors for sight loss. We have made good, long-term progress in reducing smoking rates among adults, which have come down from about 21% in 2010 to 13% now—the lowest on record. Of course, that still means that we have one in seven adults smoking, which is why on 11 April I announced a package of new measures to achieve our ambition to be smoke-free by 2030. We are also working with the food industry to ensure that it is easier for people to make healthier choices, and supporting adults and children living with obesity to achieve and maintain a healthier weight.

In terms of the vital screening services raised by various hon. Members, I have talked previously about the success of the diabetic retinopathy screening programme, which provides screening to over 80% of those living with diabetes annually. Between 2009-10 and 2019-20, the number of adults aged between 60 and 64 registered annually as visually impaired due to diabetic retinopathy fell by 20%. That is real progress. The success of our screening programme has also been recognised by the World Health Organisation as a service that other countries should aspire to achieve.

As Members have heard me say before, one of the best ways to protect our sight is by having regular sight tests. That is why the NHS continues to invest £500 million a year in delivering over 12 million NHS sight tests, and provides optical vouchers to help with the cost of glasses for eligible groups.

As for secondary care services, when an issue with eye health is detected, it is vital that individuals get timely diagnosis and treatment. The pandemic had a huge impact on ophthalmology, as it did right across the NHS. We set ambitious targets to recover services through the elective recovery plan, supported by more than £8 billion between 2022 and 2025, in addition to the £2 billion through the elective recovery fund and the £700 million targeted investment fund last year. That will drive up elective activity and get through the backlog more quickly.

We know that NHS eye care teams continue to work hard to provide care as quickly as possible. The average waiting time is reducing; it was down to 11.3 weeks in March, compared with 12.9 weeks in September last year. Progress has also been made in reducing the number of patients waiting the longest for ophthalmology treatment. The number of patients waiting 78 weeks or longer was reduced by more than 85% between September 2022 and March this year.

A large proportion of the patients who are waiting for more than 78 weeks are waiting for corneal grafts. NHS England is working with NHS Blood and Transplant to increase the supply of corneal graft tissue. For patients who are waiting more than 52 weeks, NHS England’s elective recovery team are working hard to support local systems to increase capacity and provide care as quickly as possible. Surgical hubs and the independent sector are also being used to increase delivery, particularly of cataract surgery. In 2021-22, nearly 500,000 cataract procedures were provided on the NHS—more than pre-pandemic.

The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton made a point that I felt a bit ambiguous about, in so far as she raised the use of the independent sector. As she knows, Opposition Front Benchers also support the use of the independent sector to try to plough through the elective backlog. On the other hand, there is an important point about ensuring that trainees can get sufficient cataract surgery training and can have a broad range of clinical experiences as they are trained. The NHS has been working with the Royal College of Ophthalmologists to support that, because there is a genuine issue. We are working on that, even though we think it is right to use the independent sector to get through the backlog more quickly and save more people’s sight.

One of the most important points that the hon. Member for Battersea made was about more fundamental reforms to eye care services. She mentioned that ophthalmology is the busiest outpatient speciality and has a number of capacity and workforce challenges that are likely to grow. Predictions from the Royal College of Ophthalmologists say that demand for services will increase by 30% to 40% over the next 20 years, in line with an ageing population. In the light of those predictions, consideration has been given to how we can increase capacity to ensure that we have sustainable eye care services fit for the future. No one should have to face losing their sight due to delays in accessing care.

NHS England’s transformation programme has been considering what services could be safely moved out of hospital. The hon. Member is right to say that image sharing between primary eye care providers and secondary care specialists, through telemedicine hubs, could allow more patients to be seen in the community, which is a very exciting opportunity. A pilot that we are running in north-central London has already shown the potential for that model to improve the triage of patients into secondary care. NHS England plans to support a number of other integrated care systems to adopt the eye care referral model, aligned to their local commissioning arrangements.

[Marsha De Cordova]

On the way in which we can join up primary and secondary care and ensure that MECS are being commissioned across all ICBs, does the Minister agree that that measure should be consistent and must take place, so that across all our ICBs, MECS would be available in the community?

[Neil O'Brien]

The hon. Lady has read my mind, because I was about to come on to MECS. We will produce standard service specifications for MECS to reduce the variation that she rightly raised, as well as driving forward the integration of those new technologies into local ICSs.

As well as making the best use of our clinical capacity, we have to invest in growing the future workforce, as the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) said. That is why we have taken steps to increase the ophthalmology workforce. We increased training places in 2022, and more places are planned for this year. In addition, there will be improved training for existing ophthalmology staff so that they can work at the very top of their clinical licence to further increase capacity and support the flow and delivery of care.

I recognise the important role of research and innovation in understanding sight loss and making available new treatments—a point that several hon. Members raised. That is why we continue to invest significantly in vision research. As I highlighted in a previous debate, the National Institute for Health and Care Research has invested more than £100 million in funding and support for eye conditions research over the past five years, and the NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre was awarded £20 million last year for another five years of vision research leadership.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I know that the Minister is coming to the end of his speech, but I do not want to let him sit down without pressing him for a timeline for the workforce plan. Will it cover ophthalmology and eye care? He said that he met Louisa Wickham, the eye care transformation lead, but will he confirm that all the investment in that space will continue and will not come to an abrupt end?

[Neil O'Brien]

I am happy to confirm that the workforce plan should be out pretty shortly, and that it will look across the entirety—

[Marsha De Cordova]

You have been saying “shortly” for a while.

[Neil O'Brien]

Until there is a date, there is no date, but it will be fairly soon.

[Dr Huq]

The Minister says he is open to the idea of more research. Charles Bonnet syndrome is recognised by the NHS, but it is seen as a side-effect of sight loss. Will he commit to some proper research on that?

Just to correct the record, I agree that it should be all hands on deck to clear the backlogs. I was not saying that it is either/or; it is about joining forces on cataracts.

[Neil O'Brien]

Very good. As a first step towards the research that the hon. Lady calls for, I commit to doing my own research on the syndrome that she describes, which sounds incredibly disturbing for those who suffer from it.

I hope that the range of work that I have outlined reassures hon. Members that we acknowledge and take seriously the hugely important challenges faced by eye care services. We are working at pace on these issues, and we will be doing more. I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate for raising these important issues.

15:37

[Marsha De Cordova]

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. This has been a healthy debate, but it is deeply worrying that we continue to debate the need for a national eye care strategy for England.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) for her fantastic speech and the work she is doing locally. As a campaigner, I learned so much from the incredible work of my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and her massive support and campaigning for special schools in her constituency. My hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) and for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) are no longer here, but they both made very good contributions, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby).

I want to say a special thank you to the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) for sharing his experience of macular, and for his tireless campaigning on this issue. I hope that we can continue to champion eye health and raise the need for a national plan to tackle the challenges that people with sight loss face.

I take the Minister’s point; I know he is trying, but we need action. We need to see fundamental changes, particularly on the workforce, the pathway, the joining up of primary and secondary care, research and public awareness. He said that all the areas that we have discussed on a one-to-one basis and that I have raised here are being looked at. Can we have another meeting so he can update me on all the work that is going on? I want to ensure that none of this is in vain and that we actually see some sort of plan—some sort of strategy—that delivers for people living with sight loss and prevents more people from losing their sight.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the potential merits of a national eye health strategy.

15:40

Sitting suspended.