(PROVISION OF OPHTHALMIC SERVICES BY EXECUTIVE COUNCILS IN ENGLAND AND WALES TO BE ON PERMANENT BASIS, AND FACILITIES FOR PROVISION THEREOF TO BE AVAILABLE AT HEALTH CENTRES.) (Hansard, 1 April 1968)

§ Mr. Snow

I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 15, line 13, leave out from 'provision' to end of line 18 and insert: 'by persons of each of the descriptions aforesaid of such (if any) other ophthalmic services as may, in the case of a particular health centre, be so determined in relation to persons of that description.' The purpose of this Amendment is to extend the range of private ophthalmic practice which the Minister may determine shall be permisible in any particular health centre so as to include other ophthalmic services in addition to the provision and repair of private optical appliances already included in the Clause as drafted. Amendments were moved in Committee which would have had the effect of permitting private sight-testing and other ophthalmic services by ophthalmic opticians at health centres in addition to the Part IV services and private dispensing proposed in the Bill.

The Amendments were, in our judgment, defective, in that this extension of private practice would not have applied under the terms of those Amendments to ophthalmic medical practitioners. My right hon. Friend was not prepared to accept any of the Amendments without consulting their representatives. The Amendments were withdrawn on my right hon. Friend's undertaking to seek the formal views of the bodies representative of ophthalmic medical practitioners and of opticians on this question. My right hon. Friend gave an assurance that a suitable Amendment, which is this one, would be tabled on Report should these consultations indicate that this would be desirable.

My right hon. Friend has sought the views of the representative bodies concerned on the question of private sight testing, and they are in agreement that it would be right to include this in the field of private practice at health centres which could be the subject of the Minister's determination. The Amendment 129 would permit ophthalmic medical practitioners and opticians to provide ophthalmic services. I am advised that this includes the professional services which each branch of the profession respectively is competent to perform, including the resting of sight by ophthalmic medical practitioners and ophthalmic opticians as well as, as was proposed in the original Clause, the provision, replacement and repair of appliances by both ophthalmic and dispensing opticians.

The Minister's power to determine the extent, if any, of the private practice permitted in the case of each health centre will still remain. It is envisaged that the Minister would not exercise his power except in those cases where general ophthalmic services were being provided or agreed to be provided from a health centre and where local consultation between executive councils, the local representative of those providing ophthalmic services, and the local health authority showed that there was a need for private ophthalmic services also to be provided from that health centre. Therefore, the Amendment would give effect to the intention of the Amendments which were proposed in Committee. I think that it wholly meets the point then raised.