I am writing to provide an update on the NHSE Special Schools Eye Care Programme. I wrote about this in Parallel Vision on two previous occasions but now have more information. Work on this area was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, some momentum is beginning to develop again. I have put the service documentation onto the BIOS website for members to access (link). This includes a service specification, guidance, and competency framework.

I contacted departments at the start of 2020 to ask that you are happy for me to provide your email address to NHS England for contact, thank-you for this. Since that time, we have met with NHS England and some departments that provide existing special school services in the hope to enhance those services with the NHS England funding. The idea would be for NHS England to provide the optometry and dispensing element to any services that do not already have this incorporated via their existing contract. The service specification was written such that there is flexibility for all service models to access funding. NHS England will not fund secondary care services i.e. Orthoptic/Ophthalmology time.

A member of the NHS England team, Rupesh Bagdai is one of the first to be working on some instances of the ‘new’ service in the North West, primarily the Greater Manchester area. We hope that existing services will be enhanced to work as a whole whist funding is provided by NHS England and their Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). To get this right, it would be useful for existing services to have some information to be able to apply for the NHS England element of the service. The following information would be useful to collect;

• Number of children seen in your special schools across your service (school names and contact details, new starters vs follow-up appointments),
• Conversation with your local schools about this to maintain confidence in your relationship,
• What already exists in terms of care i.e. what is paid for by the CCG,
• The number of yearly RFM and dispensing that will be required to be funded by NHS England.

Whilst the current work has prioritised the complimentary addition of the NHS funded service to existing eye care services in special schools, we are also keen to extend the reach of the programme by providing new services in schools that have no current eye care provision. With that in mind, please contact myself or Richard Everitt directly If your Local Authority or CCG would be interested in establishing a new eye care service from scratch – NHS England are willing to fund the sight test and dispensing elements of the service, so you will need the support of your local commissioners to fund the secondary care contribution. This is an exciting opportunity to create multidisciplinary teams delivering comprehensive eye care services for the benefit of every child attending a special school in England, and we would love to hear from you if you are interested in supporting the programme.

BIOS SEN CAG Lead

Louise Allen