New Moray College degree to address eye-care gap

A NEW degree course at Moray College UHI will help address a growing demand for eye-care services in the north.

The General Optical Council has granted provisional approval for the BSc (Hons) optometry degree to be delivered from September to 60 students a year at The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI).

The course will be the first new optometry degree to be launched in Scotland in almost 50 years and the university will be one of only two institutions across the country to provide undergraduate training for optometrists.

The degree, which will also be available at Inverness College UHI, will combine clinical skills training with placements in community practices and hospital eye clinics. The curriculum will incorporate new approaches to training to support the delivery of optometry services in remote and rural communities.

The programme has been supported by the Federation of (Ophthalmic and Dispensing) Opticians, NHS Grampian, NHS Highland and community optometry practices including Specsavers, Duncan and Todd, Boots, Vision Express and Goskirk Pettinger. The curriculum has been designed in collaboration with Deakin University, Australia, which devised a similar degree to train optometrists to work in remote and rural areas.

The Optical Workforce Survey 2015 suggested an additional 800 optometrists will be needed across the UK to meet the demands of an ageing population. The survey, published by the College of Optometrists, identified the north as one of the main areas which needed more optometrists.

Iain Stewart, chief executive of NHS Highland, said: "Optometry can be a difficult specialty to recruit and retain to, but with this excellent programme available in the local area I would hope that the students of today would make the decision to stay in the area where they trained and become our colleagues of the future."

SNP MSP Richard Lochhead said: "This innovative new course is fantastic news for Moray College UHI and homegrown students who can choose to remain here to study and work. We need to take practical steps to ensure our ageing population has the specialist care they need and this degree will allow us to produce much-needed professionals."

To find out more about the BSc (Hons) optometry course, visit www.uhi.ac.uk/optometry.

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