Visionaries gather for annual conference

Fiona Sandford

Sam Latif

Hundreds of delegates from across the UK attended a recent flagship conference, host by Visionary, the membership organisation for more than 135 local and national vision loss organisations from across the UK.

The programme at this year’s Visionary Annual Conference was designed to “connect, develop and inspire” delegates through keynote speakers, workshops and an awards night recognising vital work undertaken in local communities. Speakers included national clinical director for eye care, Louisa Wickham, Marsha de Cordova MP for Battersea, London,, who is campaigning for eye health improvements, and Sam Latif, Procter & Gamble’s first company accessibility leader.

“Our flagship conference is an opportunity for everyone to come together to share ideas and best practice, go to workshops and listen to keynote speakers and celebrate their achievements,’ says Fiona Sandford, Visionary’s chief executive officer. “It was incredibly powerful to hear Marsha de Cordova MP talk about how she’s translated her personal experience of being visually impaired since childhood into direct action.

“Sam Latif spoke very powerfully about her own experiences of blindness, including her challenges navigating the world with a double buggy and a long cane. Louisa Whickham offered her interesting and knowledgeable clinical perspective on making sight loss pathways better and easier to navigate for people by making them more joined up.”

Fiona Sandford added: “Celebrating the essential role of community-based organisations supporting people with sight loss live well was another highlight from the conference, and these fantastic achievements were recognised during our annual awards ceremony.”

Winners included:
• Focus Birmingham: Connect and Collaborate Award, Sponsored by RNIB
• Look UK: Develop and Share Award, Sponsored by Guide Dogs UK
• My Sight York: Children and Young People Award, Sponsored by The Powell Family Foundation
• Seescape: Community Impact Award, Sponsored by Specsavers

Marsha de Cordova MP

Marsha de Cordova MP has been campaigning for improvements in eyecare and the introduction of a national eye health strategy in England, which has been supported by organisations across the eye health sector.

She said: “We’ve really helped to put eye health on the agenda over the past year including through my Bill calling for a National Eye Health Strategy for England. It is incredibly important to put a spotlight on eye health given the worrying situation in the NHS, address the challenges in the eye care pathway, and improve the coordination between primary and secondary care. On a human level, it’s really about wanting to make that difference to the lives of people regardless of where they live, so they can access good quality eyecare.”

Marsha said she would like to see “a more consistent approach to commissioning and delivering eyecare across England, which suffers from a postcode lottery.”

With a general election due in the next year, the MP said she would continue to seek improvements to eye health care.

“I want the government now to take action, and I would expect any incoming government to look at my Bill and the work that we’ve been doing in this space and seek to implement especially given the benefits it will bring to government as well. One of the positives here is that there already are great examples of where it works and has worked,” she concluded.