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 incentivise NHS organisations to provide innovative treatments in ophthalmology.

Surgical hubs are being used to deliver high volume, low complexity operations resulting in increased number of cataract operations being performed. Trusts are increasing the use of technology to improve ophthalmic diagnostics, including the use of virtual eye hubs in which technicians administer a series of tests and consultants review results via cloud software. In some cases, hubs have halved patient journey times and reduced costs and unnecessary referrals.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are also redesigning eye-care cardiac pathways to reduce variation and improve performance across surgery, diagnostics and outpatients. The Department has provided the National Health Service with £160 million to implement and evaluate innovative ways to increase the number of elective operations they deliver through the accelerator programme. Initiatives include a high-volume cataract service and 3D eye scanners.