HL Deb 22 July 1986 vol 479 cc119-20

3.2 p.m.

Lord Rugby

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows: To ask Her Majesty's Government what legal safeguards exist for children whose eyesight may be irreparably damaged by over-prescribing.

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, the need for a prescription to correct refractive errors, however small, is a matter of clinical judgment by the optician or doctor who undertakes the sight test. Any complaint that may arise should be referred to the local family practitioner committee for investigation.

Lord Rugby

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that reply. I presented a paper to the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, showing that the Ophthalmological Society had done its own investigation and found that something like 20 per cent.—

Noble Lords

Question!

Lord Rugby

My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that some 20 per cent. of children of that age are being put into glasses when they have no impairment whatsoever to their visual acuity, and that that may indicate that eye tests are being oriented much more to a commercial sale of spectacles than to a moral obligation to look after the welfare of the child in the long term?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, I am aware of a recently published report that concluded that over-prescribing of spectacles to school children was very common. However, I understand that there are conflicting professional views on the criteria used in coming to that conclusion and that the author of the report herself accepts that the methods employed, constituted a very blunt instrument for measuring visual function". However, accepting that there may be some over-prescribing of spectacles, the department has sought independent professional advice.

Lord Mottistone

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is sad that the obsession of the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, with the presumed wickedness of all opticians colours greatly his questions and gives them a bias which is not reasonable?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, I find it a little difficult to agree with that. Since the Question asked about legal safeguards, let me say that, in addition to considering complaints, family practitioner committees have powers to investigate any cases where it appears from their routine examination of sight-test forms that there is prima facie evidence of excessive prescribing of glasses. That power is quite separate from the investigation of the complaint. There are indeed safeguards and monitoring systems in place.

Lord Ennals

My Lords, is not the Question prompted by a rather scaremongering article in the British Journal of Ophthalmology and are we not talking of only a very small percentage of children? Will the noble Baroness accept my great satisfaction that the deparment is at least having a look at the matter in order that the argument between the two noble Lords can be satisfactorily settled?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, as I said in my original reply, there are conflicting professional views on the study. It may be of consolation and interest to noble Lords to know that the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians is funding a study into the identification and treatment of clinically important refractive errors in primary school children.

Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon

My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether safeguards exist or can be devised for those children who, owing to lack of proper parental control, have their eyesight damaged by over-exposure to television?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, that is always taken into account. But there is other evidence, and indeed the report itself suggests, that about one-third of the children who have spectacles came for their medical examination without them.