Labour to provide outpatient appointments in high street opticians to cut waiting lists

Labour has announced it will seek to provide tests and follow up appointments in high street opticians to cut NHS waiting lists.

There are currently 619,000 patients waiting for NHS eye care, 17,000 of whom have been waiting over a year.

An FOI last year revealed that hundreds of NHS patients have lost their eyesight following their appointments being delayed since 2019.

One patient in Stoke was told he needed an urgent operation but is still waiting seven months later. The operation could extend his eyesight for another ten years, but he fears losing his eyesight due to the waiting time.

To cut ophthalmology waiting lists, Labour would seek to negotiate a national deal to deliver more routine outpatient care in high street opticians, using existing funds. This would include appointments like cataract pre-assessments and operation follow ups, glaucoma monitoring, and common diagnostic tests.

Using optometrists in local opticians for more routine appointments would free up hospital specialists to treat more serious cases sooner, be more convenient for patients, and provide better value for taxpayers’ money already being spent in the service.

Provided they are willing to meet new standard NHS terms and conditions, and demonstrate value for money, Labour will put high street opticians to work to cut NHS waiting lists.

Karin Smyth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, announcing the reforms in a speech to the Institute for Government, said:

“Patients are left with a desperate choice – wait and risk losing their eyesight or pay to go private. This is the two-tier healthcare system emerging under the Tories. It is unacceptable and Labour will end it.

“There are 6,000 high street opticians in England, equipped with specialist staff and kit that can get patients seen faster. We will put them to work to beat the Tory backlog, and free up hospital specialists to treat the patients in serious need. All at greater convenience to patients and better value for the taxpayer.”

Smyth also declared that Labour would wage a war on waste in the NHS, with Labour setting out ten examples of money being misspent, wasted, or unnecessary targets, costing the health service as much as £10 billion.

New examples of waste include:

• Around 1 in 4 missed outpatient appointments are due to admin issues, costing £300 million a year, and could be avoided by reminding patients and giving them the option to rearrange ahead of time
• An FOI of NHS trusts reveals that the NHS still spends £200 million a year on paper and postage, a decade after Jeremy Hunt pledged the NHS would go paperless. More recently, Hunt said “I am quite relieved that most people seem to have forgotten that I made that promise.”
• Analysis of NHS figures shows that around 7 million patients went to A&E last year because they can’t get an appointment with their GP, leading to longer waits at hospital and costing the NHS up to £2.5 billion more than if they had seen a GP.
• £176 million spent hiring private ambulances and taxis to take patients to hospitals, because no ambulances were available, double the amount spent in 2017/18, according to FOIs submitted by Labour. Ambulances waited an hour and 24 minutes or more outside of hospitals 42,000 times in December, because hospitals didn’t have space to take their patients.

Labour is pledging to halve spending on management consultants and to launching a Red Tape challenge in Government to help tackle rising costs and inefficiency. The Government removed a cap on management consultants spend earlier this year, despite evidence that NHS trusts which spend more on management consultants become less efficient. Labour is pledging to re-instate controls on spending on consultants and require an assessment of whether services can be provided in-house.

Ends

Notes

Opthamology waiting lists: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/rtt-waiting-times/

Hundreds of NHS patients have lost their eyesight following their delayed appointments:https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/21/hundreds-left-with-lost-or-damaged-eyesight-after-nhs-delays-research

One patient in Stoke feared he will go blind, as he’s been waiting 7 months:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-67914461

Almost 7 million patients last year went to A&E because they couldn’t get a GP appointment. Treating patients in A&E is up to ten times more expensive to the NHS than the average cost of being seen by a GP: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/key-facts-figures-nhs

Jeremy Hunt pledged the NHS would go paperless in 2013, and five years later admitted “I am quite relieved that most people seem to have forgotten that I made that promise.”https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/11/book-appointment-gp-smartphone-app-new-nhs-plans/

Ambulance handover delays: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ambulance-quality-indicators/ambulance-quality-indicators-data-2023-24/

Management consultants spend: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11727761/Department-Health-spent-record-626MILLION-taxpayer-cash-management-consultants.html