Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of pre-visit notifications, in the context of mandatory electronic submissions of general opthalmic services claims.

Domiciliary eye care providers are required to give advance notification to integrated care boards (ICB) of their intention to provide a National Health Service domiciliary sight test to an eligible patient. This is referred to as a pre-visit notification (PVN) and includes the details of the contractor, where the visit will take place, and the names and dates of birth of the patients booked to have a sight test. Pre-visit notifications play an important role in safeguarding vulnerable groups.

As part of the PVN process, contractors are required to seek a PVN number from their local ICB and to submit that information on the associated electronic claim form. Information about the number of PVNs submitted by optometrists is not held centrally but is held at an individual ICB level.