A survey of the availability of state-funded primary eye care in the UK for the very young and very old.

BACKGROUND

The National Health Service (NHS) provides General Ophthalmic Services (GOS) to eligible patients in the UK. Nearly all community optical practices have a contract with the NHS via local primary care organisations (primary care trusts in England) allowing the practices to provide NHS sight tests to eligible patients.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the accessibility of GOS sight tests for certain groups of patient in the UK.

METHOD: A telephone survey was carried out to investigate the availability of GOS sight tests for two categories of eligible patient. A total of 200 primary eye care practices were randomly selected, of which 100 were telephoned to establish the availability of a sight test for a child aged 1 year whose mother is concerned due to the presence of a family history (parental) of strabismus. The other 100 practices were telephoned to investigate the availability of a sight test for a person aged 90 years who was described as having dementia.

RESULTS

A total of 199 of the 200 practices provided GOS sight tests. The mean age at which practices declared that they start examining children was 3.1 years. Most (76%) practices recommended an eye examination for the 1-year-old child, but only 46% said that they would carry this out themselves. Of the other 100 practices telephoned across the country, 93% said that they could arrange an eye examination for the patient with dementia.

DISCUSSION: Of the UK optical practices that participated in this study, 99.5% provide GOS sight tests. About half of these would not offer a GOS sight test to a 1-year-old child. It has been suggested that the GOS Terms of Service do not permit practitioners to exclude categories of patients from GOS services, although we argue that this interpretation is equivocal. Indeed, it is suggested that clinical and ethical reasons may sometimes require practitioners to decline to examine certain categories of patient. It is worrying that one quarter of practices did not recommend an eye examination for a young child with a family history of strabismus. It is hoped that a continuing education and training project will increase interest in paediatric optometry.