Hundreds of people have lost their sight or had it irrevocably damaged because of treatment delays, recent figures have suggested - making it vital that patients know how to get seen quickly for eyecare.
NHS England figures, released in March following a Freedom of Information request from the Association of Optometrists (AOP), showed 551 patients have reported a loss in sight due to delayed appointments since 2019. The loss in sight for over 200 of those patients resulted in 'moderate to serious harm', with the AOP alleging hundreds of cases have gone unreported.
In England, alone, there are over 600,000 people waiting for eye appointments, almost 30,000 of those who’ve been waiting for a year or more, the BBC has reported. And amid these delays that can have a huge impact on the state of patients' eyes, the NHS in Greater Manchester is revealing a way to beat the wait.
