Ophthalmology: Coronavirus

(asked on 1st June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when optician practices will be able to reopen during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 12th June 2020

NHS England and NHS Improvement issued guidance on 1 April suspending all routine National Health Service eye care services, during the height of the pandemic. Essential services such as the remote provision of glasses needed by patients to function, have continued to be provided, from a limited number of optical practices.

Around 350 optical practices are commissioned to provide urgent/emergency eye care services by clinical commissioning groups as part of moving services out of hospital. These have also continued to be provided.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are now urgently considering when it will be appropriate to return to the full provision of the NHS sight testing service.

Reticulating Splines