Vision screening of 4 to 5 year olds at school entry.

The request was successful.

Dear Head of Orthoptic Service,
The British and Irish Orthoptic Society on behalf of the Clinical Council for Eye Health Commissioning are writing to make an open request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

The purpose of this FOI request is to establish the provision of ‘orthoptic-led’ and/or ‘non-orthoptic-led’ vision screening across England.

Definition of ‘Orthoptic-led’:
A service that is led by a designated Orthoptist who is responsible for all aspects of delivery of vision screening to all eligible children. This includes leadership of the personnel delivering the screening, the care pathway and audit and quality assurance mechanisms. The testing of children may be either Orthoptist delivered or delivered by a vision screener trained by an orthoptist.

We would be grateful if you could please answer the following questions and their subsections (where applicable) for the financial year 2019/20 to allow us to establish current provision and support orthoptists in the future to deliver an ‘orthoptic led’ service.

Many thanks for providing this information, it will be extremely useful to support the objective of delivering equitable orthoptic led vision screening for ALL 4-5 year old children by mapping out current provision. If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact [email address]. We look forward to hearing from you.

Questions
1. How many LA and CCGs are served by your organisation for all acute, community and specialist services?
Please list them all.

2. Does your organisation provide the Orthoptic Services for the resident populations of these LAs and CCGs? Y/N

3. Is a vision screening service currently available in the area (by LA or CCG) served by your organisation for providing Orthoptic Services? Y / N
If NO - please list the LA/CCG that do not provide a vision screening service

If YES – For each commissioned screening service please indicate:

a. Who commissions it - LA or CCG?
b. Its compliance with the PHE service specifications i.e. Orthoptic-led and delivered with Quality Assurance and clinical audit processes (https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...)
i. Compliant
ii. Not compliant

4. List the key features of each commissioned screening service :
a. Settings (e.g. school).
b. Screening personnel (e.g. orthoptist, school nurse or other health professional).
c. The onward care pathway for children who fail the vision screening.
d. The quality assurance processes (audit) and identified clinical lead for the vision screening service.

5. Tell us how you monitor if every eligible child in the Local Authority or CCG commissioning the service has been tested (including those in private schools, or those who are home schooled).

6. Tell us whether a vision screening programme has been commissioned for the current financial year

7. If a vision screening service is not currently available, in a Local Authority or CCG served by your Organisation could you please tell us for each of these LA or CCGs –

a. why it has not been commissioned?
b. whether a service is planned for the next financial year (2020/21)?
c. whether an existing service has been recently decommissioned?

Yours faithfully,
Veronica Greenwood
Chair of British and Irish Orthoptic Society
Parul Desai
Chair of Clinical Council for Eye Health Commissioning

barnsley@infreemation.co.uk, Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

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