Your safeguarding duties: a cause for concern?
19 August 2022
Summer 2022
Despite compulsory safeguarding training every two years, optometrists can still feel unsure of their duties. Kathy Oxtoby looks at what to do if you suspect a patient requires safeguarding.
Would you know how to recognise the signs of abuse or neglect, trafficking or radicalisation? These societal ills usually remain hidden, but often reveal themselves in healthcare interactions – even in occasional ones, such as eye examinations.
This is why safeguarding children and adults at risk is “an overriding professional duty for all registered optical practitioners and practices in the same way as for other health and social care practitioners and providers” (Optical Confederation, 2019). Safeguarding means “protecting a citizen’s health, wellbeing and human rights, enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect”, according to NHS England (2022). The risk of harm has become even more prevalent: 26,307 offences were recorded in 2021-22 – an average of 72 a day, and a 25% rise from the previous year (NSPCC, 2022a).
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Related further reading
The College of Optometrists used this year’s Westminster party conference season to champion the vital role of optometrists with MPs and ministers across the political spectrum. We attended five conferences this year, promoting the key messages from our Manifesto for England.
To mark World Sight Day, new analysis of UK eye tests data estimates that only around 5% of the total population of children aged five years and under had an eye test in 2025, despite optometrists and opticians recommending that children should be taken for their first regular eye test by the time they start school, from age three to four years old.
ABDO, Boots Opticians, the College and Specsavers have all come together to provide CPD to enable you to build your confidence in working with children in your practice.