We know that people with sight loss can face big challenges accessing services which can impact their decision to seek support, their ability to manage their health, and their experience of care.

We want to do better in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin so we have teamed up with the experts – people living with sight loss – to understand their experience of our services and how they think it could be improved.

Claire Roberts, Clinical Lead for the Eye-care Transformation Programme, said: “We must remember, people with sight loss don’t just use our eye-care services, they use all our services, so it’s important we consider their needs across the system.

“From receiving information they can’t read, organising transport, struggling to find the reception desk, toilet or coffee shop, or navigating a busy waiting room with bags littering the floor, accessing our services as someone with sight loss can be really difficult.

“Our experts by experience have helped to identify some simple ideas (top tips) for how we can make things better, from looking at patient communications to giving staff the confidence to ask people how they want to be supported.

“Our next step is to refine those ideas and create a really engaging suite of training resources with input from our experts – so watch this space!”

Thank you to everyone who has been involved and to Clare Humphreys at Sightloss Shropshire, Cathy Ritchie from Shropshire Council, and Helen Cottrell from Telford & Wrekin Council for their support and the introduction to our experts.

To find out more about this exciting project, please contact Jo Bayliss at jo.bayliss@nhs.net