Patients: Visual Impairment

(asked on 10th March 2020) - View Source

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 30 January 2020 to Question 8395 on Visual Impairment, what plans his Department has to begin collecting data on patients' experiencing loss of sight while awaiting NHS treatment.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 13th March 2020

There are no current plans to begin collecting data on patients’ experiencing loss of sight while awaiting National Health Service treatment.

The current NHS access standard for referral to elective treatment requires that patients will be seen within a maximum waiting time of 18 weeks. Clinical priority is the main determinant of when patients should be treated followed by the chronological order of when they were added to the list.

NHS England’s Elective Care Transformation Programme is supporting hospital eye service departments to better manage demand and minimise the risk of significant harm to patients. Further information can be found at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/transforming-elective-care-services-ophthalmology

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