Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing mandatory pre-school eye tests in England.

In June 2019, the United Kingdom National Screening Committee re-affirmed its recommendation that children should be offered orthoptic-led vision screening between four and five years of age. Vision defects looked for in the school age screening test includes amblyopia and refractive error. More information can be found at the following link:

https://legacyscreening.phe.org.uk/vision-child

Local authorities have responsibility for commissioning this as local screening services. Public Health England has made available guidance to support local authorities in commissioning such services. All children under the age of 16 are also entitled to free National Health Service sight tests from high street practices.