Prescription to GP surgeries

Prescription to GP surgeries

This is after a survey by Guide Dogs revealed more than a third of visually-impaired people feel their GP is not fully aware of their needs

The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association is launching Guidelines for Best Practice (for GP surgeries), on Wednesday, 16 February.  It will advise doctors how to ensure their premises are easily accessible for guide dog owners and other blind and partially sighted people.

Surgeries are encouraged to:

• Identify all patients with a visual impairment and ask them how staff can provide effective support during surgery visits.
• Ensure that all staff receive regular training on disability awareness issues.
• Develop a flagging system on patients’ notes to alert staff that a patient may require assistance.
• Identify the preferred format of communication for all blind and partially sighted patients and ensure that all correspondence is sent out to them in this format.
• Regularly maintain entrances to the surgery, ensuring that routes remain free of obstructions.
• Ensure that all signage is in the recommended format, size and positioned at a convenient height to be easily read by partially sighted patients.

The charity’s guidelines are designed to address the problems faced by patients with sight loss. These include limited physical assistance, lack of staff awareness, and information that is often not in a preferred format, such as Braille or large print.

Bridget Warr, Guide Dogs’ chief executive explains: “There are over a million blind and partially sighted people in the UK; 90 per cent of these are over 60.

”The NHS must ensure its services are accessible to those people who need them most.  Therefore our guidelines are as important to doctors as their medical book, and we hope local practitioners will be contacting us for a copy.” 

Guide Dogs will launch its guidelines in London, during a conference at Sadler’s Wells theatre, on Wednesday, 16 February.

There will also be a promotional event for GPs north of the border at the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh on Thursday, 3 March.

Doctors can order copies of the publication by phoning 0118 983 8304 or e-mailing rebecca.atherton@guidedogs.org.uk. You can also find out more and see a summary of the guidelines online.