Preventing Avoidable Sight Loss

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mrs Gillan; it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I commend the hon. Member for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani) for working so hard to secure this Backbench Business debate.

I must start by declaring a personal interest in this debate: I have been diagnosed with cataracts and also have an issue with the macula in my left eye. I would like to thank the Doorkeepers, who are always present, for writing down the names of all Members for me so that I can refer to them properly in my speech. I simply could not do it without them.

Like a lot of people, no matter how hard I listen at hospital appointments, I cannot always absorb everything that is said to me, so I do not know exactly what is wrong, but I am due another appointment soon. I am fortunate that as a result of visiting my local optician for my regular free eye test, the optometrist saw what was wrong and referred me to a local hospital for further investigation, and then on to a hospital in Glasgow. My husband has also benefited from free eye tests and is receiving treatment. We are really grateful to the Scottish Government that we have free eye tests.

The Cabinet Secretary for Health committed last year to a review, to consider an even more joined-up strategy and ensure that practices already taking place in parts of Scotland are spread across the country. The chair of Optometry Scotland has said that the review, which will look at existing models of good practice, could really change what is happening.

As the hon. Member for Wealden said, almost 2 million people are living in the UK with sight loss, and the number is expected to double to 4 million by 2050 because of the ageing population, which many speakers have referred to. I am one of those older people, so I have a dog in this fight. I do not want people across the UK to wait any longer than necessary for proper treatment. The hon. Lady also referred to glaucoma, which is the most prevalent cause of preventable sight loss. As she pointed out, there is no overarching eye strategy for England, but there are strategies in place for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Almost 300,000 people are registered with sight loss in England, and that figure will double. The voluntary sector in England is supported on this, but the Department of Health recognises that local solutions are better. Indeed, the hon. Lady made an impassioned plea for that. She referred to small changes to guidelines. A national strategy is vital to plug local gaps. She called for the screening of all children between four and five, which has been recommended but not yet implemented; I had not recognised that previously, but I do not think anyone in this Chamber would not support that.

The hon. Lady said that early diagnosis is really important and must be followed by speedy treatment, and that missed and cancelled appointments should be minimised. Finally, she looked at the international landscape and the good work done by DFID. She also mentioned that the cost of vision loss in the UK is £28 billion per annum, which could be mitigated by changing the type and speed of treatment that people receive. That was echoed by other speakers.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn)—what a wonderful name for a constituency—talked about quality of life, especially for older people. That was echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), who said that the difficulties experienced by older people lead to things such as falls, which impacts on the national health service across the UK, but especially in England. It also leads to isolation and loneliness, of which my hon. Friend has great professional experience and also family experience with her own grandmother. As the hon. Member for Great Grimsby said, patients should not be left waiting. She referred to problems with Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, which has been sued as a result of delay in treatment.

The hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) referred to her career as an ophthalmologist. I must say that ophthalmologists do great work, because it was my local ophthalmologist that started my long referral for treatment. The hon. Lady hopes that the Government will achieve their own 20/20 vision for England; indeed, I think we all hope that. Delays are affecting 20 people a month. It gets to the stage where people turn up for appointments but nothing can then be done. No one should be happy with that situation, and no one is. I make a plea to the Minister to ensure that he looks at it.

The hon. Member for Wealden referred to the case of Jean Rugg and the fact that people are now going private across the UK to try to prevent sight loss. I am sorry, Mrs Gillan: I get a bit emotional about this issue because of my own fear. I have not been wearing glasses from such a young age as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—I was 11 when I started—but I think I can safely say that I can give him a good few years, so I have been wearing them for a long time. For someone who already has sight problems, the thought of losing their sight is something that they live with daily, and when it is flagged up that there might be something wrong, that causes great personal distress.

A really important point is that free eye tests, which we have in Scotland, encourage people to attend regularly to have their eyesight checked, which, as I said, leads to better treatment earlier. We really do not want a postcode lottery anywhere in the UK but, as hon. Members said, there is a postcode lottery in England: people need to live in the best place to get the best treatment.

The hon. Member for Strangford talked about the role of the optician. He said that 30,000 people in Northern Ireland—1.7% of the population—are affected at present. However, as is the case for the whole United Kingdom, this will be an ongoing and serious issue as populations age. My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow painted a vivid picture of how people can be affected psychologically by sight loss—loss of vision. It is awful.

I want to ask the Minister about the cost of drugs and the £20 million cap that NICE has implemented in England. Does he consider the new cap an appropriate measure, given the Conservatives’ manifesto promise to speed up the introduction of new medicines into the NHS? It seems counterintuitive, when we can save the NHS money through early treatment, that we stop treatment that will help to prevent people from suffering falls and psychological illnesses and costing the NHS even more in the long run. Prevention is always better than cure. We really should be looking at that. In Scotland we do our best to do that. There is a different ideological focus. I have talked many times in this Chamber about how we do things better in Scotland. Hon. Members across the Chamber do not always agree with me, so it has been comforting, and indeed pride making, to hear them agree with me on this issue. A national strategy is needed in England as well as in the rest of the UK—in the devolved Assemblies and in the Scottish Parliament. Can the Minister give some comfort this morning to my colleagues who represent English constituencies?

It is a privilege to be able to talk here about the good work that we are doing in Scotland and that has been done in other parts of the UK. I again ask the Minister to look at the £20 million cap and at providing for the NHS in England a strategy that can help prevent avoidable sight loss.