England Vision Strategy progress report 2015/16
Summary
To address the problems faced on a daily basis by blind and partially sighted
individuals, and to promote the importance of maintaining good eye health,
the leading organisations in England are working together to deliver a plan for
change called the England Vision Strategy.
The England Vision Strategy works to the aims of the UK Vision Strategy and
the Seeing It My Way outcomes nationally and locally for adults and children.
The England Vision Strategy works closely with VISION 2020 UK, the
umbrella organisation which leads collaboration and cooperation between
organisations with an interest in eye health and sight loss.
The work for 2015/16 has focused on developing effective national and
regional structures to ensure successful long term delivery of the six priorities
of the England Vision Strategy with over 400 partners engaged with during
this period. The national and regional building blocks are now largely in place
and we move into 2016/17 focused on delivery against the six priorities.
Highly valuable and productive work has been ongoing via lead organisations
within each of the six priority areas whilst we have established the necessary
England Vision Strategy structures but it will only be in 2016/17 that we can
truly seek to claim achievement of outcomes under the auspices of this
initiative.
This report provides a high level overview of progress over the past year.
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Development of an Executive Group
The England Vision Strategy was previously led by the England
Implementation Group (EIG) which consisted of representation from a large
number of organisations and bodies from the eye health and sight loss sector.
Following the appointment of Peter Corbett and John Thompson as coChairs, representation at the EIG was reviewed resulting in a smaller
Executive Group with a strong strategic outlook and six key priorities.
Development of a Consultative Group
The Executive Group ensures it can provide direction for the sector within
England through an open Consultative Group which meets twice annually to
facilitate open discussion among partners. The Consultative Group’s role is to
enable input and support from a wide range of stakeholders into the delivery
of the England Vision Strategy.
Six priorities
In 2015/16, the England Vision Strategy identified six priorities until 2018 as
the key building blocks for change. Launched in June 2015, these priorities
were chosen following extensive feedback from stakeholders.
1. Detecting eye conditions early, especially in seldom heard groups;
2. Promoting a consistent strategy for eye care commissioning;
3. Improving the Certification process – making sure people who are eligible
actually get certified and registered and that relevant data flows through
the whole eye health and sight loss pathway;
4. Early intervention to ensure practical and emotional support post diagnosis
(for example, an ECLO available in every eye department);
5. Habilitation and rehabilitation available on a free and timely basis for as
long as needed to learn or relearn key life skills including mobility;
6. Development of peer support and self-help groups in every community for
adults, children and families to provide voluntary sector support for
independent living and to lobby for inclusive local public services.
These six key priorities are being addressed across England including by task
and finish groups actively promoting partnership working across the Adult UK
Sight Loss Pathway and the Pathway for Children and Young People (0 to 25
years) with Visual Impairment and their families.
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In some instances the England Vision Strategy has established new areas of
work to address the identified priorities and in others it has linked with
partners to join up established activity across the sector along the eye health
and sight loss pathways. Functional Excellence Groups, experts within their
fields, have been established via pre-existing groups and committees to
support the lead organisations for each priority. The pre-existing groups are
predominantly VISION 2020 UK Special Interest Committees.
Further detail for each priority is as follows:
1) Detecting eye conditions early, especially in seldom heard groups
Lead organisation: LOCSU
Actions:
1. Support LOCs and LEHNs in the five fast-track sites to work with
SeeAbility and local partners to promote the commissioning of the LOCSU
pathway for adults with learning disabilities;
2. To continue the work with SeeAbility on a national influencing strategy to
lobby for national commissioning of the pathway for adults with learning
disabilities;
3. To work with SeeAbility to develop a framework for commissioning
enhanced sight tests for children in special schools;
4. To continue the work with SeeAbility on a national influencing strategy to
lobby for national commissioning of enhanced sight tests for children in
special schools.
2) Promoting a consistent strategy for eye care commissioning
Lead organisation: Clinical Council for Eye Health Commissioning (CCEHC)
Functional excellence group: CCEHC
Actions: To provide a series of tools to allow a consistent approach to eye
care commissioning across England, including:
 Community ophthalmology framework
 Primary care framework (including a referral management framework)
3) Improving the Certification process – making sure people who are
eligible actually get certified and registered and that relevant data
flows through the whole eye health and sight loss pathway
Lead organisation: Royal College of Ophthalmologists
Actions:
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1. Advice to the RNIB on an e-learning module on CVI
2. Joint work with the RNIB on redesign of the CVI form to recommend to
Department of Health England – November/December 2016
3. Work with the Department of Health on redrafting notes to consultants
on CVI
4. RNIB eCVI project – representation on the Project Board – September
2016
5. Representation on the VISION 2020 UK CVI task and finish group on
CVI data collection
4) Early intervention to ensure practical and emotional support post
diagnosis (for example, an ECLO available in every eye department)
Lead organisation: Action for Blind People
Actions:
1. To develop and promote an effective approach to sector partnership
working in support of priority 4 by March 2016.
2. To agree a prioritised approach to the roll-out of ECLO services across
England by December 2015
3. To establish local ECLO development groups in 15 pilot areas across
England to inform and influence the roll-out of priority 4 by March 2016
4. To support research into the current availability of ECLO services and the
quality and accessibility of those services by December 2015.
Note: new actions were being determined at the time of writing. The above
actions had been achieved as anticipated.
5) Habilitation and rehabilitation available on a free and timely basis for
as long as needed to learn or relearn key life skills including mobility;
Rehabilitation
Lead organisation: RNIB
Functional excellence group: VISION 2020 UK Rehabilitation Committee
Action: To be clear about the criteria for a good rehabilitation service,
promote 5 examples of good practice and engage with 10 local authorities
where there are areas of concern regarding provision of rehabilitation
services.
Habilitation
Lead organisation: Blind Children UK
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Functional excellence group: VISION 2020 UK Children and Young People’s
Committee
Action: By 2020 every child with a vision impairment should have access to
structured and timely habilitation training, delivered by a qualified habilitation
specialist.
6) Development of peer support and self-help groups in every
community for adults, children and families to provide voluntary
sector support for independent living and to lobby for inclusive local
public services.
Lead organisation: Thomas Pocklington Trust and Visionary
Functional excellence group: VISION 2020 UK Charity Forum
Actions:
1. To develop a working definition of what good practice peer support and
self-help looks like by March 2016 (achieved);
2. To develop good practice peer support and self-help in every community
across England by March 2018 which will be achieved by:
 Building a picture of existing peer support and self-help groups currently
in place across England through existing community groups; local
voluntary organisations and condition specific organisations and
identifying gaps in coverage/provision – September 2016
 Developing quality standards and guidance for setting up and managing
volunteer-led initiatives and other specific activities to support the
implementation of more peer support and self-help groups – April 2016
– March 2018
 Developing a plan to work with others to implement this across England
– March 2018
Note: It is expected that to truly establish quality peer support and self-help
across England, implementation will need to continue beyond March 2018.
Regional network
Regional structures have been established across 12 England regions with
line of sight to every local authority and clinical commissioning group area in
England. This regional approach is key to achieving the priorities of the
England Vision Strategy and the scale of the task in establishing these
structures should not be underestimated. This was a significant undertaking
requiring a dedicated team to develop relationships with key partners to gain
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buy in to the priorities of the England Vision Strategy across each region. The
full list of regions is:
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South East
London
East
Wessex
South West
Thames Valley
Bath and North East Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire
West Midlands
East Midlands
North West
North East and Cumbria
Yorkshire
These regional structures, working predominantly in partnership with the
Local Eye Health Networks, bring together health, social care and the
voluntary sector to address the EVS priorities.
We have directly engaged with over 400 professionals, including
representation from blind and partially sighted individuals, across the regions.
Professions comprised of:
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Public Health;
Dispensing opticians;
Optometrists;
Orthoptists;
Ophthalmologists;
Ophthalmic nurses;
Eye clinic liaison officers (ECLO);
Rehabilitation workers;
Qualified Teacher of Children and Young People with Visual Impairment
(QTVI);
Children’s services;
Clinical Commissioning Group commissioners;
Local authority commissioners;
Sensory team managers;
Learning disability representatives;
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 Deafblind representatives;
 Voluntary sector Chief Executives and their teams.
Reporting mechanisms are established for the regional structures and the first
full reporting is due summer 2016.
We have successfully brought together partners across the eye health and
sight loss pathway who were not working jointly previously. This is resulting in
early progress against the six EVS priorities. For example:
 Visionary members in the North East are reviewing how they can best use
current resource to improve rehabilitation support and peer support
groups.
 Public Health have undertaken eye health needs assessments in Thames
Valley following engagement from the Local Eye Health Network Chair and
supported by the England Vision Strategy team.
 Work is in progress in Kent, via the England Vision Strategy team and
Local Eye Health Network, to monitor the Ophthalmic Public Health
Indicators to inform commissioning of services and improve service
provision.
There is concern that engagement with senior level local authority
representatives is limited across most regions. This is something we wish to
address as an ongoing issue given the significant role local authorities play in
an individual’s rehabilitation process and in their everyday living.
Aims for 2016/17
The focus for 2016/17 will be continuing to work with national and regional
partners to support their delivery of the six England Vision Strategy priorities.
This will include measuring the effectiveness of the regional approach and its
ongoing sustainability. Regional managers, funded by Thomas Pocklington
Trust, have been recruited for the North and South of England to support this
ongoing work and report to the Head of England Vision Strategy.
Now national and regional structures have been established, clear reporting
of achievement under the six England Vision Strategy priorities will be
provided to show progress made and areas for further activity. While initial
reporting has occurred in 2015/16, we can now begin to improve join up of
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national and regional work through sharing of good practice and calling upon
partners to address identified issues.
By March 2017 we will want to show good progress against all six priorities
with a view to maintaining delivering of all actions by 2018.
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