Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the availability of optician services.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning primary and secondary eye care services to meet local need. We are not aware of any issues with the availability of sight testing services. The decision to commission enhanced eye care services will be determined by local ICBs following a local needs assessment.

The NHS.UK website sets out the importance of regular sight tests whilst also providing information about entitlement to free National Health Service sight tests. The Department also looks for opportunities to promote the importance of NHS sight tests, such as through National Eye Health Week.