Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people were registered blind in each of the last five years.
As NHS Digital collects data on a triennial basis, data can only be provided for two of the last five years.
The number of people who were registered as blind or severely sight impaired in 2013/14 and 2016/17, as well as the number of people who were newly registered in those years is shown in the table below.
Year | Number of people registered blind or severely sight impaired* | Number of new registrations* |
2013/14 | 143,385 | 8,875 |
2016/17 | 141,525 | 8,605 |
Source: NHS Digital - The Registered Blind and Partially Sighted People collection (SSDA902).
Notes:
Data is also collected on registrations from those who are partially sighted/sight impaired. The figures in the table relate only to those registered blind or severely sight impaired.
*Data is rounded to the nearest five.