Professor David Keegan:

In terms of irreversible sight loss, the answer is "Yes". We alluded to some of the conditions earlier, namely, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration and paediatric amblyopia. Those are three examples. The reason we picked those care pathways was not just because of irreversible sight loss - it is the volume of patients that present with those conditions.

Again, the data gaps we have in our society and in our health service create problems in the context of planning properly. Our colleagues who deal with glaucoma are anxious about not knowing the exact glaucoma demand that sits in the north-east region. We are going about that now. The story of Johnny is real. I am sad to say that is a real story of a missed opportunity. If we have learned anything over the past few years in our health service, it is that we should try to minimise missed opportunities. Unfortunately, eye care delivery sometimes gets pushed a little bit to the side. It is a little bit of a Cinderella specialty, but we cannot ignore it. If anybody in the room or on Zoom just stops and thinks for a minute what his or her life would be like with a vision impairment or blindness, it does not bear thinking about.

We have got to do our best. We are the professionals. We must go and deliver it and intercept. There are opportunities early in these disease pathways for glaucoma, paediatric amblyopia and age-related macular degeneration. That is what we mean by needless blindness or preventable blindness. Yes, there are a raft of conditions that are currently non-preventable. My specialty is inherited retinal degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. Those treatments are coming on stream. We are here today to talk about those so, yes, there are lots of patients with those conditions. We need to get them into us. Dr. Rogers might wish to add something.