MP Campaigns for Better Support for People Losing Their Sight

At a parliamentary reception hosted by RNIB, David Taylor MP learned about the patchy provision of support for people with sight loss and is taking action locally to ensure that quality support is in place in the eye clinic so everyone who is diagnosed as losing their sight gets the help they need.

Today 100 people in the UK will begin to lose their sight, but only 8 will be offered counselling, despite a high risk of depression and even suicide. Losing sight has a devastating impact on people’s lives, and it is often assumed that if you start to lose your sight a range of services swing into action – this is not always true.

David said "Professional, one-to-one patient support is crucial if people are going to adjust to a life without sight. This is best delivered by an Eye Clinic Liaison Officer when someone is diagnosed with sight loss. Happily, this support is already available in our area, but with the number of people living with sight loss set to increase, more needs to be done to ensure people receive the care and support that helps rebuild lives. I will be speaking to health directors about service provision for people who lose their sight. The NHS must prepare itself to meet future demand on eye clinic services and to ease the burden on voluntary organisations."

RNIB Group Director Inclusive Society, Fazilet Hadi says: “When people lose their sight, they lose more than their ability to see, they lose their life as they once knew it. There is clearly a systemic failure in the UK to provide vital support for people when they lose their sight. It’s left to organisations like RNIB, or local societies of blind and partially sighted people, to plug this gap and at the moment we can only help one in three people facing this enormous life change."

Visit www.rnib.org.uk/lost to find out more about RNIB’s Lost and Found campaign.
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For further media information, or request a copy of the Lost and Found campaign report please contact RNIB Media Relations Office on 020 7391 2223 (out of hours mobile: 07968 482812).

Notes to Editors:

New research reveals that eye disease and sight loss cost the UK nearly £6.5 billion in 2008. With the number of people with sight loss set to double to nearly 4 million by 2050, RNIB has already called on Government to prevent avoidable blindness. Wherever sight loss cannot be prevented, there is an overwhelming economic and moral case for investing in care and support that speeds rehabilitation and rebuilds lives.

A shocking 23 per cent of people losing their sight leave the eye clinic without even being certain of the name of the condition that caused their sight loss. Thousands of people get no support when they lose their sight - most receive no counselling and are left to cope with their diagnosis alone.

However, a solution is at hand- the Eye Clinic Liaison Officer. This key professional, now in place in some eye hospitals around the UK, is there to give advice to people who are told they are losing their sight. They give basic emotional support, signpost people to local statutory and voluntary services and make sure they go home with information on their condition and how they can cope.

PHOTO SUPPLIED: David Taylor MP with Steve Winyard, Head of Campaigns for RNIB, at the reception