22/05/2026
The Government’s new Health Bill sets out a vision to modernise the NHS and improve early diagnosis and community care. Yet optometry has been largely overlooked. This is a missed opportunity to relieve pressure across the system and improve outcomes for patients.
Optometry is equipped with the clinical expertise, workforce capacity and community presence to manage a wide range of eye conditions safely and effectively. With the right commissioning structures and investment, the profession could play a central role in reducing avoidable demand on GPs, ophthalmology and A&E. The Health Bill acknowledges the need for earlier intervention and more care closer to home, but without integrating the whole of primary care, there is a real risk that the reforms simply reinforce pressures in the NHS that they aim to resolve.
Without proper integration into NHS planning, the opportunity to transform eye care will be lost. To deliver change, systems that involve or rely on optometry must be co-designed with the profession.
Read the briefing: https://ow.ly/I7Jy50Z2OYT
