A large proportion of eye care happens at outpatient appointments. This means that NHS outpatient data provides important metrics on a key part of the eye care support pathway. This data provides us with insight into how many people are accessing services, how has this changed over time, and the geographic variation.
This article focuses on England due to the differences in definition and data collection across the devolved nations.
Latest data
There were 9.8 million vision related outpatient attendances across England in 2023/24.
This includes the main ophthalmology speciality, which is consistently the area of the NHS with the highest number of outpatient appointments. It also includes data on the wider hospital care pathway for vision, including orthoptics, hospital-based optometry and paediatric ophthalmology.
Trends
Over the last 10 years, there has been a 27 per cent increase in the number of vision attendances. This is despite a big reduction during the covid pandemic.
| Year | Vision outpatient attendances |
|---|---|
| 2013/14 | 7.72 million |
| 2014/15 | 8.02 million |
| 2015/16 | 8.28 million |
| 2016/17 | 8.66 million |
| 2017/18 | 8.66 million |
| 2018/19 | 8.95 million |
| 2019/20 | 9.00 million |
| 2020/21 | 6.14 million |
| 2021/22 | 8.40 million |
| 2022/23 | 8.99 million |
| 2023/24 | 9.84 million |
Variation
There is significant variation in demand for vision services across ICBs.
Some ICBs have seen a more than 50 per cent increase in vision attendances over the last decade, which is more than twice the national average. This suggests growing local pressures, perhaps driven by demographic changes or higher prevalence of eye conditions.
Conversely, other areas have seen no growth at all, with attendance levels the same now as they were a decade ago. This could indicate stable population needs, limited access to services, or alternative care pathways being used locally.
Overall, this highlights the uneven pressures that are experienced by providers. These contrasting trends underline the importance of local knowledge and planning.
Outpatient data in the Sight Loss Data Tool
In the Sight Loss Data Tool, you can find the total number of outpatient appointments and the first appointments. Both show important insight: first appointments indicate new referrals entering the system, and repeat appointments show ongoing care needs.
In England, the outpatient data we use in the Sight Loss Data Tool is taken from the NHS Vision Atlas. This lags 12 months behind what you can find on NHS Digital in Hospital Episode Statistics.
Why use the slightly older data?
The key difference is that NHS Vision Atlas gives person-based data, and Hospital Episode Statistics gives provider-based data. That means one dataset is telling us about where people live, and the other is telling us about where the provider is based.
This is important because eye care operates with large regional hub hospitals. Using data based on where the provider is located biases the insight. For example, Moorfields Eye Hospital is the largest provider in the UK, and provider data means that North Central London ICB is inflated far beyond the actual number of people living in that area who are accessing eye care services.
We’ve made the choice to use slightly older but better-quality data that reflect the true impact of sight loss on individuals and communities.
John Slade