Community vision: bringing eye care to the people who need it most

Eye care is vital for health and quality of life – but the people who need it most often struggle to access it. Specsavers want to change that. They’re working with Vision Care for Homeless People (VCHP) to launch a Bristol-based project providing eye care for people experiencing homelessness.

“Bristol is a city where people pull together,” says co-founder of Specsavers Dame Mary Perkins. It’s an appropriate sentiment – we’re here, in the city where she grew up and began her career, to launch VCHP and Specsavers’ crucial initiative, which was made possible through a collaboration between the two allies.

Set to launch in October 2023 at the city’s Compass Centre, the project aims to make a meaningful impact on those most in need. “The new service is part of a broader commitment to improving eye care accessibility for all,” says Dame Mary, who has been a patron of VCHP for 10 years.

Local insight and international inspiration

“I was born in Bristol, I’m a Bristolian,” she says, recalling her early days straight out of university, running an optical business in the city. Her connection to the community is clear. Optometry is, after all, a uniquely intimate healthcare experience between optometrist and patient. Physical closeness comes with the territory, and so a personal connection often follows. An optician’s store becomes part of a local community in every town. “You get to know people; you’re helping them to see better – that’s so important.”

Specsavers, the business she co-founded with her husband Doug Perkins in 1984, aims to nurture these community ties, fostering a sense of closeness that extends beyond providing glasses or hearing aids. “It’s about treating each person who walks through the door as a new best friend, whoever they are,” as Dame Mary puts it.

Those working on setting up the new centre have high hopes. To support and inform the service design and development, Specsavers and VCHP, working with Expert Focus, have formed an ongoing focus group with people who have lived experience of homelessness. Insight from this group will help to improve accessibility for all disadvantaged communities, and show how it can be improved within VCHP clinics and Specsavers’ own stores.

“Together we are going to enable significantly more homeless people to see a brighter future,” says Elaine Styles, chair of VCHP. With this initiative marking VCHP’s 20th anniversary, the milestone further fuels their determination to reach more disadvantaged communities throughout the UK.

It was seeing the absence of that kind of community access abroad, while backpacking in a township in South Africa, that spurred VCHP co-founder Harinder Singh Paul to find a way to do more. “I remember the exact moment,” he recalls. “I got off a minibus, looked around and not one person was wearing glasses. I couldn’t help there, but I decided that when I got back to the UK I would do something to make a difference at home.”

Eye-opening facts: why eye care matters so much

Eye care is extremely important: “We have found from research that we’ve done that someone who is homeless is more likely to have conditions that would require referral to a doctor or ophthalmologist,” he continues. “There are dry eye conditions because some homeless people are outside a lot more and exposed to the elements; there are conditions that affect the eyes because of a lack of nutrition because their diet might not be great. There’s a condition called cerebral edema (pressure in the brain) that can, if untreated, lead to death. It’s 90% more prevalent in people from low socio-economic backgrounds but it can be detected through an eye test. Thanks to support from Specsavers, facilities like the new VCHP centre in Bristol will improve accessibility to eye care for all, and such conditions can be identified and treated more quickly.”

Many people affected by homelessness go for years without having an eye test. A study of 100 people in homeless shelters in Cardiff found that 50% of clients had not seen an optometrist in the previous five years. A survey of 168 people conducted by VCHP found that more than half of those surveyed (57%) reported current eye care needs. Half said they were without their glasses and had not had them for 50 weeks on average.

Some 65% said they had been put off going to an optician, giving reasons including expense, it not being a priority for them or being uncertain whether they would be asked to pay. It’s clear that accessibility to eye care is a major issue.

A brighter future: access for all

Once the initiative is underway, Harinder has high hopes. “We’d like to see a situation where it’s really busy… we’d like this to be advertised more to let homeless people know that we’re here.”

As Dame Mary says, “Everybody is entitled to be able to see properly. Not having a fixed address shouldn’t stop people from having eye care.”

Harinder agrees. “When you apply for benefits, there’s a drop-down menu on the screen that asks your status. We’d like ‘homeless and vulnerable’ to be added to that list of options. That way, anyone could access eye care from any optician anywhere in the country. That would be a dream come true.”

As Dame Mary affirms: “We’re reaching out to bring people in. We’re here for everybody. We just haven’t seen them all yet.”