NHS England should look to Wales as an example of how to increase collaboration between pharmacists and optometrists, Pharmacy Voice has said.

Public Health Wales' Look After Your Eyes campaign in community pharmacies had shown how the sector could encourage a "preventative approach" to eye disease, Pharmacy Voice said in its response to an NHS England consultation on optometry services published on Friday (September 12).

The C+D Award-winning campaign, which ran over July last year, had demonstrated the "success of joint professional working" by reminding patients to have regular eye examinations and offering MURs to people taking medicines for eye conditions, Pharmacy Voice said.

Pharmacy Voice called on NHS England to take its lead from Wales and commission multidisciplinary services "at scale" where they were most needed. 

This would address a lack of consistency in the care provided by health professionals, which was one of the barriers to improving health outcomes, Pharmacy Voice said. Pharmacists also needed more information about optometry services in their area so they were able to signpost patients correctly, it said.

The lobbying group stressed that community pharmacy and optical services should be the first port of call for common eye conditions to encourage self-care. Pharmacy Voice supported a recommendation made by professional body the Optical Federation in March for NHS England to create a "simple pathway" to ensure pharmacy staff referred patients to an optometrist or optician – rather than a GP – for advice on eye ailments.

Pharmacy Voice used its response to renew its call for NHS England to grant the sector access to patient records as a way to create "effective information systems" between different healthcare professions.

"NHS England needs to work with IT suppliers to deliver an interoperable solution that [gives] optometrists and pharmacists read-write access, starting with the summary care record and then the full patient record," it said.

The Call to Action For Improving Eye Health and Reducing Sight Loss – which ran from June to September – is the last of NHS England's consultations to inform its overall strategy for primary care, due to be published in the autumn. It follows consultations on GP, community pharmacy and dental services. 

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