Don Foster

Liberal Democrats | Bath

Guide Dogs for the Blind

Report from Westminster Column for The Observer
Bristol North and South Gloucestershire Editions

One of the most enjoyable things about being an MP is that no two days are alike.  Every week brings a new opportunity to meet a wide range of interesting people and learn from them.

This happened last week when I attended the launch of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association’s “Access for All: NHS Campaign”.  This Campaign is focusing on the experience blind and partially sighted people have of their GPs’ surgeries, and the charity has written a report on the difficulties people with visual impairment have when they visit their GPs.  As I am on the House of Commons Health Select Committee I was particularly interested in the findings of their research and in the suggestions they made to help GPs provide a better service for their blind and partially sighted patients.

Talking to members of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, I was able to hear at first hand about the experiences that blind and partially sighted people have of the NHS.  I was pleased to hear that the vast majority was satisfied with their actual  medical treatment.  Once people got in to see their GP, they were almost always pleased with the service they got, but more than half of people with sight loss feel that their GPs need to improve some aspects of their care.   They were able to suggest many ways in which GPs could take more account of their patients’ disabilities.  A lot of the suggestions seem obvious when you think about it, but too often, in a busy practice, thinking about it just doesn’t happen.

The difficulty experienced by the greatest number of patients was getting written information in the format they preferred, whether this was Braille or large print.  Over 90% of the people surveyed said that they never received prescriptions, health advice leaflets or information about hospital appointments in a format that they could read.  Their next most common problem was lack of help with the physical difficulty of finding their way round the GP’s surgery.  Often they had no help in getting a seat in the waiting room or in finding their way to the doctor’s consulting room.

After talking to members of the Guide Dogs Association, I could imagine how I would feel about going to see my GP, not being able to see where there was an empty seat in the waiting room, missing the notices and leaflets that might give me important information about my health and then not being able to read the prescription I was given. (Though that last one happens to sighted patients too!)  I realised too that improvements for visually impaired people will have wider benefits.  We all benefit from clear notices and helpful well-trained staff, looking out for our needs.

90% of the nearly two million blind and partially sighted people in Britain are over 60 and, as we, as a country, are getting older, the problem is likely to increase.  It is important, therefore, that the NHS responds positively to the Guide Dogs Association’s report.  Health Minister Stephen Ladyman MP was at the launch and he was sympathetic to the aims of the Association and appreciative of its offer of help.  The Guide Dogs Association is going to draw up a set of standards which GPs can use as a model of good practice and every GP’s surgery in the country has been sent information about the campaign.  The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) is also supportive of the campaign and it has a task group looking into ways of training and supporting GPs so that they can improve the service they give their blind and partially sighted patients.  With such a welcome, I am optimistic that this report will not be found gathering dust on a shelf.

Observer readers might think that the findings in the Guide Dogs Association’s report were fairly obvious and that MPs should not need to stand around for a couple of hours talking in order to learn the lessons.  That may be true.  Nevertheless, nothing is so convincing as hearing people talk about their personal experiences.  I feel that there is clear message for all service providers, MPs and Ministers and that is that we should always listen to the clients.  They know what they need and they usually have a very good idea of how it can be provided.  I look forward to the NHS’s positive response to this thoughtful and informative report.