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They are everywhere. Free this, free that, adverts and promos to entice you to take up an offer from companies all over the world. However, one particular campaign has drawn criticism from the Royal College of Ophthalmologists.
The Royal College's Paediatric Sub Committee recently stated that it would prefer the the Optical Confederation's Children's Eye Health campaign focused on informing parents of the push to 'detect vision defects in children through clinical examinations' as opposed to it's current free sight tests stance as it fails to point out that the test are not technically without charge as the NHS has to pick up the bill. The debate focuses on educating parents and children on issues that may occur and can be treated early as opposed to just appealing to peoples pockets.
The campaign covers the mandate to make sure that all children should be receiving eye tests by the age of 4-5. Currently, many children are not receiving this level of care. As it stands, it is estimated that around 33% of children in the UK are at risk of avoidable eye conditions and visual impairment due to a lack of early eye testing.
The stance of the Optical Confederation is that of making sure that 'children's eye health problems are (not) being missed.' One factor towards a child's failed schooling has been noted as visual problems, which could have been fixed at a much earlier age, meaning that their education suffers simply due to being unable to see properly. If diagnosis is made at a much earlier stage, children have the option to correct defects or be given options and help to work around their problems so that their education is unaffected.
Woman With Magnifying Glass by Petr Kratochvil Image