10. Short Debate: See differently — Living with sight loss in Wales today

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:03 pm on 3 October 2018.

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Photo of David Lloyd David Lloyd Plaid Cymru 6:03, 3 October 2018

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and can I commend Nick Ramsay's excellent presentation setting out all the facts and the details? And it's good to highlight the issue of sight loss here in the Assembly, as chair of the cross-party group on vision. As Nick alluded to, earlier in the summer we had figures through that showed that there were 54,000 patients in Wales on follow-up waiting lists in ophthalmology clinics in our hospitals that were at risk of losing their sight. These are people that had been seen by specialists, were due to be seen again in three or six months—they had glaucoma, or whatever—but those appointments were always being put back for a variety of reasons, and sometimes they would not got seen for months, sometimes years. They're at risk: 90 per cent of sight loss was happening in those follow-up waiting list situations. It is a situation that needs to be tackled, because these people have been diagnosed and they've been lost to follow-up because of delays. There are initiatives, as Nick was saying, and we look to Government to bring those figures down. Diolch yn fawr.