The community optometry workforce in Scotland: supporting sustainable eye care delivery.

Abstract

Background: In early 2024, NHS Scotland published community optometrist workforce and activity data at a national level for the first time in the UK. These data are now over two years old, and anecdotal reports suggest changes amongst optometrists' work-patterns post-pandemic. To identify if that data continues to be reflective of the community optometrist workforce, the aim of this paper is to provide equivalent data for 2022 and 2023.

Methods: Anonymised information about the active community optometrist workforce was extracted from routinely collected eye examination claim data, for periods 29th Aug-4th Dec 2022 and 28th Aug-3rd Dec 2023, and compared to equivalent published data (2019/2020). Workforce information included optometrist headcount, working days per week and independent prescribing optometrist activity.

Results: During 2022 and 2023, n = 1451 and n = 1489 community optometrists were active respectively, with independent prescribing workforce activity increasing from 24.1% to 26.6%. During 2023, 61.3% and 34.9% of the workforce delivered eye examinations an average of 4 and 5 or more days per week respectively. Since 2019, the proportion of community optometrists who were female increased by 2.9% and over half the active workforce remained <40 years old.

Conclusions: The data in this paper indicates a growing, active community optometrist workforce, including an increasing number of active independent prescribers. Working patterns are stabilising after an initial shift towards more part-time working after the COVID-19 pandemic. As well as supporting workforce planning and service design in NHS Scotland, these findings may help provide insight into the wider UK optometrist workforce.