Consultation Response | Child Vision Screening Resources, Public Health England

Child Vision Screening Resources Inquiry

Southampton Eye Unit | Southampton General Hospital

A response from the University of Southampton | March 2017

Written evidence submitted by Dr Jay Self, Associate Professor at Southampton General Hospital, University of Southampton

Comments on Child vision screening resources open consultation produced by Public Health England

Screening pathway

In the first box, the term ‘privately educated’ is used rather than using the term ‘independent school educated’ which is used elsewhere in the document. For consistency, I would suggest using the term ‘independent school’ rather than ‘private school’.
In the first box, “Children identified in advance…..” is unclear. Children can only be identified in advance as ‘unlikely to be able to perform a crowded logMAR’. I have concerns about the ambiguity of simply stating that these children should ‘undergo an alternative pathway for orthoptic assessment of visual function’. I would suggest that such children are either referred direct to the diagnostic pathway, or enter the next stage of the pathway and have one visual acuity check, after which they are either referred to the diagnostic pathway (if it is deemed that a re-test will not be fruitful) or brought back for 1 re-test.

I note that in the ‘Screening pathway’ a failure to perform the test then trigger one retest. However, in the ‘Diagnostic pathway’ created by the RCOphth, a single failure to do the test triggers a referral to the eye department. This is therefore contrdictory and I would suggest that a single failure triggers referral to the eye unit as per the RCOphth ‘Diagnostic pathway’.

Parent information pre-screening

I would suggest that on the first page of this document it is made clear that the vision screening program is done nationwide, in consultation with GP’s for all children and is a government run initiative and not a study or something else. Many parents would likely read only this first page and including a comment to show that it is backed by GP’s (the most trusted point of contact with health services for most parents) and that it is done in all schools may help reduce opt-outs and garner buy-in from parents.

Learning and assessment pathway

‘Completion’ and ‘knowledge’ are both spelled incorrectly in the second orange box.