Elderly eye health prioritized by RCGP

Article

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has announced that ageing and sight loss is one of its four clinical priorities for the years 2013 to 2016.

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has announced that ageing and sight loss is one of its four clinical priorities for the years 2013 to 2016.

The RCGP will work alongside the UK Vision Strategy and develop a template to assist practitioners to diagnose undetected sight loss amongst older patients. The three-year programme will begin in April 2013 and will serve to enables healthcare professionals to improve the quality of patient care in a clinical setting.

Dr Waqaar Shah, RCGP Ophthalmology Representative stated, "By identifying sight loss at an earlier stage GPs can prevent patients suffering from other issues such as falls and depression which have strong links with sight loss, which will significantly improve the lives of patients."

Anita Lightstone, Programme Director for UK Vision Strategy and Chief Operations Officer for VISION 2020 UK added, "Many older people accept poor vision as part of the natural ageing process but this does not need to be the case. GPs have a vital role to play in raising awareness of the need for them to protect their eye health."

"By making eye health a priority and making ageing and sight loss a particular focus of this programme of work, we hope that we will be able to prevent many elderly patients from losing their sight unnecessarily."

Newsletter

Get the essential updates shaping the future of pharma manufacturing and compliance—subscribe today to Pharmaceutical Technology and never miss a breakthrough.

Recent Videos
EURETINA 2025: Boris Stanzel, MD, methotrexate is rocking the European retina landscape
Jeremiah Tao, MD, FACS, discusses his Egyptian Ophthalmological Society keynote, which focused on risk management and avoiding surgical complications in oculofacial surgery
Omer Trivizki, MD, MBA, a retina specialist from Tel Aviv Medical Center, speaks about VOY-101, a Novel, Complement-Modulating Gene Therapy for Geographic Atrophy at the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS) Annual Meeting
© 2025 MJH Life Sciences

All rights reserved.