National Eye Health Week 2010

This document is intended as a brief summary of National Eye Health Week 2010 with a view to informing strategy for 2011.

We are very grateful to those participating organisations who registered their activities on the Vision Matters website and those who completed the evaluation questionnaire. Information for this report has also been gathered from the website traffic monitoring system.

National Eye Health Week (NEHW) has always been seen as a long term project and key to increasing the effectiveness of next year’s campaign is learning from the lessons of this year’s campaign.

The first National Eye Health Week took place on 14-20 June 2010. It was a sector-wide initiative – organisations taking part included optical providers, national charities, local charities, PCTs, academic institutions, hospitals, optical bodies, Department of Health and Primary Care Commissioning. The core message was the importance of eye health and the need for regular sight tests. Under the central campaign umbrella, organisations staged their own activities in support of NEHW, focussing on their particular target audience or aspect of eye health.

The Vision Matters Website

The key functions of the website:

  • To inform visitors of the campaign
  • To give visitors information on eye health and NHS entitlement
  • To promote activities occurring during the week
  • To enable participating organisations to order/download publicity materials
  • To respond to visitors’ enquiries (within 24 hours, Monday – Friday)
  • To gather responses to a general questionnaire on eye health awareness
  • To provide links to other organisations offering eye health information services, e.g. NHS Choices

Over 300 organisations registered on the website from across the UK and from every aspect of eye health care. During the week, visits to the website increased by 5 times on the previous week. Before the week, most visits were to the pages for participating organisations, whereas during the week the vast majority of visits were to the pages on eye health and sight tests.

Various organisations offered links to the campaign site. From the traffic monitoring system, it is clear that the most common sites that visitorscame from were NHS Choices, NHS Networks, the Department of Health intranet and the College of Optometrists.The Department of Health made Vision Matters their website of the week.

The website is still live

offering information on eye health, NHS entitlement and videos on awareness and the domiciliary eyecare service. The patient information leaflet is also still available to order/download and new orders are being received daily.

Publicity Materials

Posters (A2/A3/A4), patient information leaflets and balloons were available to order on the website.

186 organisations ordered publicity materials. This included 38,000 patient leaflets,6,200 posters and 15,000 balloons.

In addition, a customisable version of the poster was available so that organisations could change the image and give details of their own activities.

At present, there is no record of volume of publicity materials produced by individual organisations to promote NEHW.

The patient information leaflet is non-date specific and still available to order.

Surveys

  1. An omnibus survey of 4,000 people was conducted on behalf of NEHW by the College of Optometrists to measure levels of awareness of eye health issues.
  2. A questionnaire on the website invited visitors to assess their own knowledge of eye health. (485 respondents)
  3. An evaluation questionnaire was circulated to participating organisations to examine lessons to be learnt for next year.

Radio

To highlight the significance of the omnibus survey results, a series of radio interviews broadcast to 26 stations, were conducted during the week, manywith optometric advisor Dawn Roberts, actor James Dreyfus, Steering Group Chairman David Scott-Ralphs and Project Manager Giles Butler.

These stations included:

Adfero

BBC Bristol

BBC Good Morning Scotland

BBC Merseyside

BBC On-Line

BBC Reporting Scotland

BBC Stoke

BBC Somerset

BBC Wales

Central FM

Chester’s Dee

Heart Somerset

Heart North Devon

Insight Radio

KCFM

Kingdom FM

Leicester Sound

Lincs FM

Moray Firth Radio

Radio Clyde

Real Radio Yorkshire

Smooth Radio (London)

Sunrise FM

The Bay – North Lancashire and South Cumbria

United Christian Broadcast

Westsound

Activities/Events

Activities were organised both nationally and regionally by organisations across the sector to promote the campaign. The types of activity were wide ranging and some are summarised below.

  • At a reception in the House of Commons key figures from the optical sector engaged with parliamentarians.
  • There was an awareness day at Stormont.
  • The leader of the Liberal Democrats wore sim specs in the Welsh Assembly for a whole day.
  • Early day motions were passed in all four UK countries.
  • National Eye Health Week had a stand in the atrium of the Department of Health where 250 people had the back of their eyes examined with a fundus camera.
  • More than 400 delegates attended the UK Vision Conference held during the week.
  • RNIB Scotland invited people to play hoopla whilst wearing simspecs
  • Hospitals and PCTs throughout England hosted both hospital and community based awareness events, many with OCTs or fundus cameras.
  • Many organisations used the week to highlight the launch of new initiatives - a website for dementia and vision impairment; a patient charter;a Vision 2020 UK consultation on optometric standards for children; RNIB Scotland’s report on ‘cost of sight loss’
  • charities set up stands in shopping centres to promote the week
  • Organisations displayed posters and patient information leaflets in staff restaurants
  • RNIB had a virtual ageing booth in Covent Garden
  • one provider produced recipe cards using foods which are good for eye health
  • Some practices organised poster competitions in schools.
  • Some providers invited MPs to their practices
  • Organisations visited care homes and sheltered housing to spread the word
  • Some circulated publicity materials to local GP surgeries, schools and libraries

Other Publicity

Many organisations featured NEHW in their newsletters, including:

ABDO Newsletter

Accor Services Newsletter

Blink (AOP Newsletter)

Chartered Institution of Physiotherapists e-bulletin

College of Optometrists newsletter

Eye Health Alliance Newsletter

FODO e-bulletin

LOCSU Newsletter

New@PCC (Primary Care Commissioning)

NMC Newsletter

RCN Wales e-bulletin

UK Vision Strategy Newsletter

Vision 2020 UK e-bulletin

Press coverage included:

Guardian Vision Supplement

Optician

Optometry Today

Paisley Daily Express

Practice Nurse

Scottish Daily Mail

South Wales Echo

Sunday Herald

The Herald

Third Force News

Western Mail

Westminster News

Other press coverage was organised at regional level but as no press monitoring system was in place, no details of this are available.

Videos

3 videos were produced for the campaign:

1. An extract from the UK Vision Strategy video on eye health awareness (on the Vision Matters website).

2. A guide to the domiciliary eye care service (on the Vision Matters website)

3. A case studies video illustrating positive outcomes of sight tests (screened at House of Commons reception and Department of Health).

Reach

It is very difficult to analyse how many individuals actually received the messages of the campaign. Perhaps the RNIB’s estimations are a helpful guide. They estimate that 49,573 people were actively engaged in their campaigns alone and that their media activity reached 2,690,000 people.

Key points raised by evaluation questionnaire

  1. The date of the week was not announced early enough. This meant that some organisations did not have enough time to plan/budget activities (organisations are now in the planning stages for 2011 and many have asked for early confirmation of the date).
  2. Publicity materials were circulated too late.
  3. More guidance/advice could be given on the website on what an organisation could do to get involved.
  4. More publicity on a national level would have helped raise the profile of local activities.
  5. A press release template should have been available on the website for organisations’ use at a local level.
  6. Publicity materials were commended for both content and design
  7. The Vision Matters website was commended for ease of access and quality of information.
  8. NEHW strengths lay in the fact that it was a cross-sector initiative open to all and not owned by any one organisation or part of the sector.

Many organisations staged activities / events without registering on the website. Many participating organisations did not submit an evaluation response.

WEBSITE QUESTIONNAIRE SUMMARY

WHEN DID YOU LAST HAVE A SIGHT TEST?
< 1 year ago / 231 / 48%
< 2 years ago / 131 / 27%
> 3 years / 94 / 20%
Never / 25 / 5%
HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU HAVE A SIGHT TEST?
Every year / 139 / 29%
Every 2 years / 298 / 62%
Every 3 years / 9 / 2%
Only if I notice a change in my vision / 35 / 7%
Of those who had not had a regular sight test, what is the reason?
320 (66%) people surveyed had had a sight test in the last 2 years
I can see ok / 61 / 13%
I did not know how often I should have a sight test / 16 / 3%
I don’t want to wear glasses / 6 / 1%
I have not got the time, it is an inconvenience / 32 / 7%
I am concerned about the cost / 34 / 7%
I’m worried I may have something wrong with my eyes / 8 / 2%
My eyes don’t hurt / 6 / 1%

Of those surveyed, 19% (93) said that they had a close relative with glaucoma. 26% of them had not had a sight test in the last 3 years. When asked why not, the most common answer was that they ‘could see ok’.

Breakdown of respondents by age:

0-19 years21

20-39years201

40-59years224

60-69years27

70+7

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