Take 5 with Dr Gillian Rudduck

“Our sector has a strong history of collaborative working,” says Dr Rudduck

Installed as the new president of the College of Optometrists in April, Dr Gillian Rudduck MCOptom is as a consultant optometrist and head of eye support at Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, where she manages a multi-disciplinary team.

Dispensing Optics editor, Nicky Collinson, speaks with Dr Rudduck to hear her views on the role of dispensing opticians in primary eyecare – and the potential for the College to work further in collaboration with ABDO and its members.

NC: What is your perception of the value that fully qualified dispensing opticians (DOs) bring to primary eyecare practice?

GR: DOs form a core part of the eyecare workforce and are essential to primary eyecare services. They have a particular role to play when patients have difficult prescriptions or complex needs. Whilst issuing the correct prescription is important, being able to translate that into a pair of spectacles that can be worn effectively by a patient can make the difference between a patient seeing well or not. Our DO colleagues are also able to provide clinical support to optometrists by being able to recognise when a patient may need further clinical investigation.

NC: How do you view optometrists and DOs working collaboratively as part of a multi-disciplinary team for the benefit of patients?

GR: Multi-disciplinary working in eyecare, involving not just optometrists and DOs, but also orthoptists, ophthalmic nurses and ophthalmologists, is essential to deliver effective eyecare services to our patients. Our sector has a strong history of collaborative working, especially between optometrists and DOs in primary care. Patients need to be seen by the right professional, with the right skills, in the right place and at the right time.

NC: What is/are the College of Optometrists’ eye health care strategy/goals moving forwards?

GR: The College’s overall strategic vision is to place optometrists at the forefront of better eye health and vision for all, and we want to establish optometrists as the first port of call for anyone with an eyecare issue. Optometrists are highly qualified eye health professionals, with the clinical skills and competencies to provide more NHS services than they are currently commissioned to do. Many have additional higher qualifications, including independent prescribing, and can manage patients with more complex needs, yet the commissioning of these services is variable across England.

We strongly believe optometrists have an essential role to play to help cut NHS waiting times and improve patient outcomes – and we are working with our partners in the sector, governments and healthcare authorities to: enable optometrists to provide more care to patients closer to home; prioritise a better-connected NHS unlocking the potential of new technologies; support the optometry workforce to develop specialised skills. To help deliver this, we recently launched our first-ever manifesto for change aimed at tackling the eyecare crisis in England.

NC: Where is the potential for the College to work further in collaboration with ABDO and its members?

GR: The College and ABDO have a long history of working together to improve eyecare services for patients, and I am keen to keep this up. I was pleased to recently meet the new ABDO president, Kevin Gutsell, and I look forward to working with him and the Association’s team going forward.

We were hugely grateful for ABDO’s significant contributions to our newly-updated Guidance for Professional Practice, and we are also delighted that ABDO is a co-funder of our UK multi-professional eyecare workforce supply and demand data modelling project. This soon-to-be-published interactive tool will support commissioners and eyecare service planners to model future local eyecare needs, and support evidence-based workforce planning and commissioning. We also work closely together on the Clinical Council for Eye Health Commissioning, and collaborated on the publication of the new standard clinical specification for community minor and urgent eyecare.

Education and up-skilling of our members is a vitally important aspect of both our organisations’ core work, and I believe we can build on our already strong partnership. The General Optical Council recently approved the fifth output of the Sector Partnership for Optical Knowledge and Education (SPOKE). SPOKE is a cross-sector collaboration led by the College and managed by a steering group comprising representatives from ABDO and the Optometry Schools Council.

Back in 2022, we were co-signatories to an ABDO-led statement of intent with aims for the professions and industry in terms of long term environmental sustainability; and I think this is something that we can build on going forward.

There are also opportunities for us to work closely together in developing guidance and best practice for myopia management, and indeed we were grateful for the invitation to speak on this topic at ABDO’s clinical conference in the autumn. With the launch of our new Associate Membership category, we hope that many DOs would consider membership and access our resources.

NC: What challenges and opportunities do you see for the delivery of primary eyecare going forwards – and how will these impact on supporting secondary care colleagues for the benefit of patients?

GR: We are facing a national eye health emergency, and thousands of patients are experiencing avoidable and irreversible sight loss due to long hospital eyecare waiting times, and the number is only set to grow with an ageing population. More than two million people are estimated to be living with sight loss in the UK – and it is predicted that by 2050 that number will double to more than four million. Every day, 250 people start to lose their sight – equivalent to one person every six minutes; and one in five people will live with sight loss in their lifetime. In addition, a 30-40 per cent increase in demand for hospital eye services is predicted by 2038.

This presents a huge challenge, and we are working with commissioners to ensure they make better use of the skills and competencies available in the eyecare workforce to manage more conditions closer to home. There are more than 17,000 optometrists in the UK, and they carry out a total of 16.8 million NHS sight tests each year.

Optometrists and DOs working in primary eyecare have the necessary clinical skills to provide even more safe and timely eyecare to patients closer to home, and reduce the burden on secondary care. We stand ready to help.