MP Rosie Wrighting meets high street eye care experts as concerns raised over decommissioning of NHS community eye services
MP Rosie Wrighting has visited Specsavers Kettering to see how its experts are providing important hearing and eye care services in the community.
The MP for Kettering spoke to the team about the NHS services provided by the locally owned and run store in the Newlands Centre. During the visit she also heard about the recent decision by Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), which commissions local NHS provision, to decommission glaucoma and pre-cataract services provided through local opticians.
Rosie says: ‘I was pleased to visit Kettering’s Specsavers store to hear more about their eye health and hearing services, see their specialist testing facilities and talk about retail crime prevention. It's great to see them providing valuable jobs in retail and healthcare and investing in training local people.
‘We also discussed their concerns about changes to the provision of eye care locally and I will be writing to Northamptonshire’s Integrated Care Board about this issue.’
David Claffey, one of the store directors at Specsavers Kettering, says: ‘It was great to welcome our local MP to our store. It was an opportunity to talk about the important role of community optometrists and audiologists within the NHS. We’re an important part of primary care and proud to serve our community. We stand ready to do even more to provide important NHS services on the high street and are disappointed by the recent decision to decommission some community eye health services.’
Specsavers has more than 1,000 stores throughout the UK and is the leading provider of NHS primary care optometry services – testing more than 20 million eyes every year. It also provides more than 40% of NHS community audiology services in England, supporting more than 200,000 NHS audiology customers a year.