Member News
ePolitix.com speaks to Heather Marshall, head of public affairs at the Eye Health Alliance, about being chair of the Health Hotel and what they hope to achieve from this year's party conferences.
What is the Eye Health Alliance and how does your membership within the Health Hotel help to achieve your goals as an organisation?
Heather Marshall: The Eye Health Alliance is a coalition of professional groups, patient-led charities and trade associations from the eye care sector, who work together to promote eye health to all. A staggering 50 per cent of sight loss in the UK could have been prevented through regular sight tests and early treatment.
Together we campaign to raise awareness of the importance of sight tests for everyone. Being part of the Health Hotel has been a highly effective way for us to raise our profile at each of the party conferences and strengthen our relationship with each of the health teams.
It has also been instrumental in helping us to build good working relationships with the other members of the Health Hotel.
As chair of the Health Hotel what do you hope to achieve at party conferences this year?
We are delighted to be chairing the Health Hotel at an exciting time in politics. In this year pre-election year we are seeking to raise our profile further with all three parties and particularly keen to build a relationship with many of the parliamentary candidates attending this year.
I understand the Eye Health Alliance will be offering free health testing in the Health Zone, what does this entail?
Once again the Eye Health Alliance will be offering all those attending conference, a free photo of their retina and the chance to get advice about any aspect of eye health from our optometrists and opticians. An eye test is not just about checking your vision. It's also very important to check for the early signs of eye disease, which if left untreated, could lead to blindness.
Our fundus camera will be able to check how healthy your eyes are. There will also be free massages offered by Sue Ryder Care, information about hearing services from RNID, and the chance to experience MS in a specially designed simulator from the MS Society.
What is the topic of discussion at your fringe event entitled, 'Buy now, pay later?'
This year we have teamed up with the RNID and the ABPI to debate the issue on the need to spend more on preventative health services to ensure the financial stability of the NHS.
We are all aware that with an ageing population there will be an increasing demand on our health service. We will be discussing how investing in services will prevent ill health and make downstream cost savings. In particular we will focus on hearing and eye care services. For more details about the event please click here.
With the general election fast approaching, do you feel the opposition parties are addressing the big health issues seriously enough?
With all the recent debate in the press about the future of health services and the massive support from the public for the NHS, health will undoubtedly be a hot election topic and I am sure that there will be much debate on all sides of the political spectrum. We look forward to seeing the opposition health spokespeople at the Health Hotel fringes to debate with us.
How would you like parliamentarians to become more involved in the Eye Health Alliance's work?
We have a great deal of support from parliamentarians who have raised our concerns in Parliament and we are always keen to build on this. We have been arranging a number of visits for MPs to see first-hand, the community eye care services available in their constituency.
Any MPs or peers who would be interested in visiting a local optical practice should contact me. The all-party parliamentary group on eye health will be arranging a number of meetings throughout the year where parliamentarians can find out more about the issues facing eye care services and what they do to help.
We hope that they will also be able to attend our annual parliamentary reception on November 30 which is kindly hosted by Kevin Barron. We will be using this opportunity to report on the progress being made to deliver the UK Vision Strategy – of which a key aim of the strategy, is to improve the eye health of the nation.
Please click here to find out more about the Eye Health Alliance.
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