National Health Service funded access to domiciliary eye care services is already available to eligible individuals unable to leave home unaccompanied, including those living in residential care homes. Action is being taken to improve access to NHS sight testing services from high street optical practices for individuals with no fixed address.<\/p>
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The NHS Long Term Plan made a commitment to ensure that children and young people with a learning disability and/or autism in special residential schools have access to sight checks in school. NHS England commenced a proof-of-concept programme in 2021 to pilot and evaluate a potential sight testing service model. The pilot has been subject to evaluation and will inform decisions about the future sight testing service in special residential schools.<\/p>
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Beyond the provision of primary eye care services, the responsibility for ensuring secondary eye care services meet local identified needs rests with integrated care boards and in some cases NHS England. NHS England\u2019s transformation programme is also considering how eye care services should be commissioned to ensure future sustainability.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4679", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Neil O'Brien"} } , "answeringMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Harborough"} , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Neil O'Brien"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2023-05-25", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2023-05-25T13:46:13.447Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "17"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Health and Social Care"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Health and Social Care"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2023-05-19", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "Ophthalmology: Access"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25259", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Commons"} } ], "questionText" : "To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has considered the potential merits of increasing access to eye care services for (a) care home residents, (b) young people enrolled in residential special schools and (c) other vulnerable people.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4005", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Bob Blackman"} } , "tablingMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Harrow East"} , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Bob Blackman"} ], "uin" : "185922"} ], "itemsPerPage" : 10, "page" : 0, "startIndex" : 1, "totalResults" : 1, "type" : ["http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#ListEndpoint", "http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#Page"]} }