With cases of eye disease set to significantly increase with an aging population, organizations from across the UK’s eye care sector, led by The College of Optometrists, have collaborated to launch the new UK eye care data hub to support health care commissioners and providers plan and design future eye care services.
The data tool forecasts the number of people expected to have a wide range of eye diseases and conditions and models the future eye care workforce over the next 15 years.
The number of people in the UK with late age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is predicted to increase by 24.4 percent in the next decade. In the same period, the number of people with primary open-angle glaucoma is set to rise by 15.9 percent, and patients with vision impairing cataracts by 16.7 percent. The data tool models over 40 eye conditions; more will be added in future updates to provide a comprehensive view of eye disease and conditions across the UK.
The data hub also allows eye care and service planners across the UK to understand how the workforce will change over time. The tool has been designed to “support all health systems across the UK, optimize the existing eye care workforce, address health inequalities, and identify priorities for future eye care workforce education, training, and development to support new models of care.”
The online data hub was developed by York Health Economics Consortium (YHEC) at the University of York. Eye disease prevalence and incidence data was compiled by 16 expert working groups of The Royal College of Ophthalmologists.
To learn how to get the most out of the new tool, users can register here to join the UK Eye Care Data Hub webinar on Tuesday, February 25.
