Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps are being taken to ensure the provision of sight-saving ophthalmology services to people with (a) eye conditions and (b) eye conditions who are extremely vulnerable and shielding.

NHS England published its ‘Clinical guide for the management of ophthalmology patients during the Coronavirus pandemic’ in March 2020. This guidance sought to ensure that inpatients, outpatients and day case patients were supported during COVID-19 and identified that infection control was vital to how ophthalmology services operate. This guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/03/Specialty-guide-ophthalmology-coronavirus-service-reorg-v1_23-March.pdf

The Royal College of Ophthalmologists has also issued guidance on ‘Reopening and redeveloping ophthalmology services during Covid recovery’ which outlined that adapting surgical and face-to-face outpatient visits to support shielding patients should be considered. This guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.rcophth.ac.uk/2020/05/covid-19-update-and-resources-for-ophthalmologists/