Sensory health (eye care and hearing statistics): April 2016 to March 2017

Sight loss

• The National Survey for Wales for 2016-17 asked if respondents’ eyesight was good enough to see the face of someone across a room, with glasses or contact lenses if they usually wear them. 3% of adults aged 16 or over responded that either they could not or with difficulty.

Primary eye care services

• During 2016-17, 776,827 General Ophthalmic Service sight tests were paid for by the NHS, a 1.0% increase on the previous year.
• 150,324 examinations were carried out under Eye Health Examinations Wales during the same year.
• Of the 139,264 patients screened (with results reported) by the Diabetic Eye Screening Wales Service in 2016-17, 28.2% were found to have some degree of diabetic retinopathy (a small number were ungradeable).

Hospital eye services

• There were 322,139 attendances to ophthalmology outpatient appointments in Welsh hospitals in 2015-16.
• Health Boards received 91,846 referrals for ophthalmology in 2016-17, of which 31,824 were from GPs.

Rehabilitation

Low Vision Service Wales

• 8,792 assessments were carried out by the Low Vision Service Wales.

People newly certified and/or registered as severely sight impaired and sight impaired

• At 31 March 2016, over 16,000 people were registered with a visual impairment, of whom around half were registered as severely sight impaired and half as sight impaired.
• 1,388 people were newly certified as sight impaired in 2015-16; over 55% of these were aged 80 years or over.

Workforce

• There were 819 practitioners carrying out sight tests paid for by the NHS at 31 December 2016, 1 more than in the previous year and a 21.7% increase since December 2006.
• At 30 September 2016 there were 137.7 whole time equivalent ophthalmology doctors directly employed by the NHS in Wales.

Hearing

• Welsh Health Survey recorded that 16% of adults reported having difficulty with their hearing in 2015.
• At 31 March 2017, 390 patients had been waiting for a hearing aid for more than the target 14 weeks.
• At 30 September 2016 there were 133.6 whole time equivalent otolaryngology doctors directly employed by the NHS in Wales.