Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps she has taken to improve digital connectivity across the whole eye care pathway.
Integrated care boards have taken steps to introduce direct referral pathways from community optometry to ophthalmology services. The requirement for this was set out in NHS England’s 2023/24 Priorities and Operational Planning guidance, published in December 2022. This has included steps to implement digital connectivity, in support of wider eye care transformation. This will facilitate the sharing of digital images between primary and secondary eye care providers.