Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, What estimate she has made of the number and proportion of patients that waited longer than (a) one, (b) three and (c) six months between an optometry test and diagnosis.

During 2022/23 there were 560,340 referrals from an optometrist to a first outpatient appointment with an ophthalmology consultant. It is not possible from the data captured to identify the point at which a diagnosis is made following a referral.

We recognise that there will be patients currently being referred into secondary care unnecessarily, this is why NHS England’s transformation programme is looking at how more patients can be assessed, triaged and managed in the community, freeing up capacity for those that need face to face specialist care in hospital eye services.