This report shows the number of ophthalmic practitioners (Optometrists and Ophthalmic Medical Practitioners) who were authorised, by NHS England in England and Local Health Boards (LHB) in Wales, to carry out NHS funded sight tests as at 31 December each year. NHS Digital also produces management information on General Ophthalmic Services (GOS) Activity.
Not all practitioners recorded on an NHS England/LHB list will have carried out NHS sight tests in the year and being recorded on a list does not detail the number of hours a practitioner works or the amount of time they devote to the NHS.
The data for this report are entered by NHS England regions and LHBs onto the Central Ophthalmic Payments System, accessed via Open Exeter. This system records General Ophthalmic Service claims, automates payments, produces required statistical returns and provides fraud prevention and detection tools. Data as at 2019 are the last time NHS Digital will publish data using this source as Ophthalmic payments and support are now the responsibility of another provider.
Please note: NHS Digital carried out a review of these statistics during 2019 and the results of this review are available. In response to stakeholder responses we are publishing these data for 2019 using the current data source. However, because of our concerns around the data quality, we wrote to the UK Statistics Authority and asked that National Statistics designation be removed. Our letter and the Authority’s response will be available on its website when published and more details are provided in the Data Quality section.