Eye care for people with learning disabilities

This 2022 policy statement assesses the progress made on access to eye care for people with learning disabilities, and sets out the outstanding calls for reform for everyone with a learning disability. It reflects SeeAbility’s new eye care strategy.
 
New NHS ambitions for learning disabilities and eye care outpatient transformation, wider reforms to integrate health and social care, public health reforms, a review of the special educational needs system, eye care regulatory changes and training proposals, all potentially underpinned by legislation, mean this is the right time to renew our call for an ‘Equal Right to Sight’.
 
The health inequalities experienced by people with learning disabilities are amongst the very worst experienced by the general population. The way Covid 19 further exposed these health inequalities means reforms are even more vital. Without improving access to community and secondary care for people with learning disabilities, there will be an increase in preventable sight loss.