Eye Health: National Strategy

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[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.