Clive Efford visits to meet SeeAbility

On Friday 13th December, Marjorie McClure School had a visit from our local MP, Clive Efford, who came to see the amazing work SeeAbility do to support our students and their families. Over the past few years SeeAbility have become an integral part of the holistic offering at Marjorie McClure and it has enabled families to access vision support services at school.

About SeeAbility – a 225 year old charity

SeeAbility is a national charity that works with people with learning disabilities and autism, many of whom will have sight loss. They are 225 years old this year. Their work in eye care is to improve access to eye care for all people with learning disabilities. Most people with a severe learning disability will have a sight problem. Many sight problems can be treated and supported but people with learning disabilities often miss out, including on access to sight tests and glasses.

SeeAbility provide information and advice, including in ‘easy read, employ eye care champions with lived experience to improve experience and access to local opticians and employ our own clinical team.

This clinical work started in 2013 in special schools. They found half of children in special schools have a sight problem, most commonly a need for glasses, yet only 1 in 10 children had ever gone for their sight test at an opticians. The vast majority of children were either under hospital eye clinics or had never had any eye care at all.

SeeAbility have delivered over 8000 sight tests since 2013, presenting the evidence to NHS England and becoming the biggest global study of its kind, winning national awards.

Marjorie McClure is well known for embracing innovation and was one of the first schools to get access to the NHS funded ‘proof of concept’ eye care service 2021 when SeeAbility began its work. The impact of eye care at Marjorie McClure has been transformative for the children.