PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Ophthalmic Services (6 January 2023)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much NHS funding was spent on general ophthalmic services in 2021-22; and what proportion of that funding was on (a) NHS sight tests and (b) NHS optical vouchers, including for repairs and replacements.

Asked by:
Dame Siobhain McDonagh (Labour)

The following table shows the cost to the National Health Service in England in 2021/22 of providing General Ophthalmic Services.

General Ophthalmic Services	Cost	Proportion
NHS Sight Tests	£307 million	56.6%
NHS Optical Vouchers incl. Repairs & Replacements	£222 million	41%
Other GOS contract costs	£13 million	2.4%

Note:

Draft accounts for this period, the numbers are not finalised until published on the NHS England website.

The following table shows the cost for secondary care organisations submitted via the National Cost Collection for outpatients within Treatment Function Code ‘Paediatric Ophthalmology’, for the financial years 2019/20 and 2020/21, the latest available data.

Year	Cost
2019/20	£43.7 million
2020/21	£50.5 million

The published data is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/costing-in-the-nhs/national-cost-collection/

Answered by:
Neil O'Brien (Conservative)
24 January 2023