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 potential merits of increasing the use of private high street eye care providers to treat conditions such as glaucoma to relieve pressure from the NHS.

We recognise the vital contribution that high street eye care providers make in maintaining the nation’s eye health.

Integrated care boards are responsible for assessing the health needs of their local population and for commissioning primary and secondary eye care services to meet them. This could include the commissioning of community-based glaucoma services, such as glaucoma referral filtering or glaucoma monitoring schemes.

The Getting It Right First-Time programme is currently developing best practice guidance for glaucoma services to support the adoption of high standards across the pathway, from detection onwards.