Cataract Operations

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. I understand from the Minister that NICE is preparing guidelines, but in the meantime, will he take this opportunity to condemn CCGs in which there is crude rationing of cataract services? I refer him to the Daily Mail freedom of information survey in July, which showed that under some clinical commissioning groups, a person not only had to have poor eyesight, but had to demonstrate that they had fallen twice in the last year, lived alone and had hearing problems, or that they were caring for a loved one. If that is not crude rationing, I do not know what is.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

Clearly the case that the noble Lord mentions is totally unacceptable. Where CCGs are rationing access to cataract operations on such a crude basis, we would all deplore that. But as I said, there is variation around the country, and the new NICE evidence-based guidelines will help to address that.