Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure individuals with (a) glaucoma and (b) other eye conditions are diagnosed and treated quickly as the covid-19 lockdown is eased.

National Health Service guidance was issued in April asking local systems to step up non-COVID-19 urgent services as soon as possible. This included the need to provide urgent outpatient and diagnostic appointments at pre-COVID-19 levels, including those urgently needed for eye-related conditions. The NHS is now working to increasingly resume the routine elective services that were paused in order help manage COVID-19.

The guidance can be found at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/04/second-phase-of-nhs-response-to-covid-19-letter-to-chief-execs-29-april-2020.pdf