Key points
- Patients need not be registered as sight impaired or severely sight impaired to benefit from low vision services.
- You should assess all patients according to their needs.
- You should follow local protocols for the assessment, referral and management of patients with low vision.
- You should consider the patient’s need for emotional support and social care.
- Low vision assessment and management is multidisciplinary.
- Low vision assessment is rarely a one-off process.
- You should refer the patient if you do not have sufficient expertise to assess a patient with low vision.
- The supply of spectacles or contact lenses to patients who are registered as sight impaired or severely sight impaired must be carried out by, or under the supervision of, an optometrist, dispensing optician or doctor.
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This Guidance does not change what you must do under the law.