National eye week starts on 24th September 2018, so I thought I’d share what Specsavers Daventry are doing to improve eye health and reducing sight loss for people in Daventry.
In May of this year I met with Specsavers Daventry for the launch of the installation of our optical coherence tomography (OCT) machine. This piece of equipment, which provides a three-dimensional scan of the eye, has proved invaluable to the store and to the community – having already helped with the early diagnosis of a macular hole.
The latest data shows that more than 2,540 people in our constituency live with sight loss. At least half of all sight loss is avoidable and there is so much more that can be done locally and nationally.
As well as carrying out more than 11,000 eye tests every year, all Specsavers optometrists also have accreditations in minor eye conditions (MECs) and glaucoma refinement qualifications – enabling us to offer eye health clinics as well as routine sight tests.
A key recent development has been the installation of the OCT, which is available to all their customers. This state-of-the-art technology, which is normally found in hospital eye departments, can pick up a multitude of conditions that can go undetected in their early stages, including age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma. The sooner eye conditions can be detected the more likely they can be successfully treated.
Specsavers Daventry have also invested in developing their practice team, with all our optometrists completing post-graduate accreditations and our support team doing many training development courses, including the latest RNIB sight impairment awareness modules.