Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 May 2024
627. Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh asked the Minister for Health when a national programme for public eyecare for children over eight years of age will be approved to ensure equity of access to eyecare for all children of the State, as committed to in the programme for Government; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22860/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraAll children, including those not covered by a medical card, receive a vision screen while in national school from a Public Health Nurse. The Health Service Executive (HSE) provides optical services free of charge to pre-school children and national school children referred from child health service and school health service examinations who are discovered to have sight problems. These children are referred to the appropriate consultant for treatment. In such circumstances, these services will continue to be provided until the child has reached the age of 16.
The HSE Primary Care Eye Services Review Group Report, published in June 2017, highlighted the limitations of the current model of service delivery and set out the way forward for a significant amount of eye services to be delivered in a primary care setting. The Report estimated that 60% of existing outpatient activity could be moved to primary care thus enabling hospital services to focus on patients who require more specialist diagnostics or treatments.
The National Clinical Programme for Ophthalmology developed a model of care, also published in 2017, detailing how the realignment of eye services from the acute hospitals to the community will be undertaken.
Included in current priorities is transferring the care of children aged 8+ years to the care of local private optometrists. A project team with a wide-ranging membership was established in late 2019 / early 2020 to progress this initiative. The work of the team was paused due to the requirement to focus resources on the COVID 19 pandemic. However, the project team has been reconvened and is progressing matters in relation to this initiative. Recently, I asked the HSE to prepare a detailed implementation plan in regard to this matter.
