The pressures on GPs are well documented. Nearly three-quarters (73%) report that patient safety is compromised by their workload, and 58% say they don’t have enough time to treat patients adequately during appointments (Royal College of General Practitioners, 2025).

We also know that nearly 59,000 people are waiting for specialist eye care, with a third waiting longer than the government’s 18-week waiting target, and eye care is the busiest outpatient speciality in the NHS in England (Healthwatch, 2025). 

This will only become a bigger issue as the number of people with glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration and cataract is set to increase over the next decade (COptom, 2025). And it has sparked calls for an increase in extending the scope of community eye care services.

Against this backdrop, the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC’s) consultation, ‘Extend medicines for optometrists and contact lens opticians’, which ran from September to November 2025, seeks to move more eye care into the community. This is in line with the NHS 10-Year Health Plan’s core shift from hospital to community care (DHSC, 2025a; 2025b).

The consultation is critical to articulate the profession’s capability, readiness “and appetite to deliver therapeutic care at scale, for common conditions”, says Daniel Hardiman-McCartney MBE FCOptom, Clinical Adviser for the College. “It allows optometry to define its scope, strengthen clinical governance and demonstrate how expanding access to medicines can improve patient outcomes and deliver care closer to home.”