Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 15 January 2018 to Question 121244, on Ophthalmic Services, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of local commissioning arrangements for (a) glaucoma, (b) age related macular degeneration and (c) diabetic retinopathy.

The Department has made no assessment of the effectiveness of local commissioning arrangements for glaucoma, age related macular degeneration or diabetic retinopathy.

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are responsible for commissioning secondary care ophthalmic services. CCGs are also able to commission eye care services in the community which go beyond the standard National Health Service sight test, where they judge them to be needed in their areas.

CCGs are required, for all services they commission, to assess the health needs of their local population using the standard joint strategic needs assessment approach. CCGs are held locally to account to the population they serve through the health and wellbeing boards.

In addition, NHS England has a statutory duty to conduct an annual performance assessment of every CCG. This assessment is carried out against a standard high level framework:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/ccg-improvement-and-assessment-framework-2017-18