National Clinical Director for Eye Care; Two Mayors, Same Household

In Touch

Parliament has revealed their plans to recruit a National Clinical Director for Eye Care, which could help transform services for patients. Until now, there's been no national clinical representation for eye care within NHS England and NHS Improvement, despite ophthalmology being the biggest out-patient department in the NHS. Last week, Minister Maria Caulfield announced that recruitment is now underway. We speak to the Chief Executive of the Macular Society, Cathy Yelf about this important development for eye care services and what she hopes the new recruit will achieve.

And you may have heard of a visually impaired Mayor before, but how about two in the same household? We're joined by Richard and Sue Lees who have both been Mayor of Taunton in Summerset; Sue is the current Mayor and Richard was elected in 2005. We talk to them about what the role entails, what led them to the post and their responses to our third item about access to Santander's bank cards.

Presenter: Peter White Producer: Beth Hemmings

Website image description: the image shows a woman getting an eye examination. Her head is leant toward a retinal camera, while the optometrist pulls down her bottom eye lid for closer inspection. A yellow light is being shone in her eye. The image represents eye care and that this element of the practice could potentially be transformed with the introduction of the new National Clinical Director for Eye Care.