487 locally commissioned services in place in England

The Local Optical Committee Support Unit (LOCSU) has shared that 99% of Local Optical Committees (LOC) had at least one live enhanced eye care service in 2025-2026 as part of its newly-released annual report.

LOCSU’s 2025–2026 annual report illustrates its progress in the first year of its 2025–2028 strategic plan, which is centred around three pledges to enhance, enable, and empower a “unified Local Optical Committee (LOC) to lead change and improve population health.”

In an introduction to the report, LOCSU’s CEO, Janice Foster, and chair, Joy Tweed, shared: “The impact of LOCSU and LOCs continues to be felt across the country. By the end of the year, 487 locally commissioned services were in place across England, providing people with improved access to valuable eye care and supporting wider NHS priorities.”

On the launch of the report, Foster emphasised: “LOCSU continues to champion the value of primary care optometry, ensuring that people can access high-quality eye care services closer to home.”

She highlighted: “99% of LOCs had at least one live enhanced eye care service in 2025–2026 and there were nine new services contracted. This is testament to the hard work of the LOC community and the support that LOCSU provides as we unite to improve the eye health of local people.”

Enabling LOC influence

The report includes examples of LOCSU’s work against its pledge to enable LOC influence, providing the groups with expertise and knowledge to influence local service commissioning.

The report stated that 78% of LOCs utilised LOCSU pathways and supporting cases in enhanced service negotiations with local commissioners.

LOCSU provided a range of commissioning support and guidance to LOCs in 2025–2026 including the publication of the first iteration of its Commissioning Toolkit in May.

The report presented highlights from eye care pathway data, finding that 487 services were in place across England by 31 March 2026 and 65 LOCs were in live discussions with commissioners, supported by LOCSU.

The report noted that 80% of the population of England has access to minor and urgent eye care through local optometric practices; with 63 LOCs with commissioned services.

LOCSU also outlined several service highlights including the Optometry First service in Shropshire and a new age-related macular degeneration filtering pilot in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

Strategy development in action

LOCSU’s strategy included a pledge to empower LOC strategy development, sharing that 81% of LOCs utilised its knowledge hub.

The report looked back on LOCSU’s work with LOCs throughout 2025–2026 to support a series of pilots for cardiovascular disease (CVD) case-finding in optometry.

In 2024, LOCSU secured funding from NHS England to pilot CVD case finding in optometry settings.

Funding of £540,00 was secured for the pilots in integrated care board areas: Cheshire and Mersey, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and South Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Humber, Herefordshire and West Essex, Lincolnshire, North Central London, and Gloucestershire.

LOCSU developed a Primary Care Optometry CVD Case-Finding Service Blueprint in 2026 to provide a recommended model for CVD case-finding in optometry practices. LOCSU noted that NHS England shared the blueprint with ICBs and published it on NHS Futures. This work was supported by 10 CVD case studies, LOCSU shared.

LOCSU also shared examples of its joint-sector national work, from responding to surveys on NHS England’s community diagnostic programme, to providing feedback to the Getting it Right First Time team on glaucoma referral filtering and optometry monitoring, to supporting the Department of Health and Social Care proposal to extend the range of medicines for optometrists and contact lens opticians.

Governance and operations

As part of its three-year strategy, LOCSU pledged to support enhanced LOC operations – aiding in the running of committees, eliminating duplication, and supporting training and development opportunities for the LOC leaders of the future.

Against this aim, LOCSU shared that 79% of LOCs adopted improved governance models and policies and/or accessed associated training.

The year saw 39 delegates from 31 LOCs enrolled on indication courses for new members, while nine candidates enrolled on the Leadership Skills for Optical Professionals postgraduate module.

Pace of change

Commenting on the launch of the report, Foster said: “As we reflect on the past 12 months, we are struck not only by the pace of change across the NHS and wider healthcare landscape, but also by the resilience, commitment and leadership shown by LOCSU and LOCs across England.”

Foster suggested that while the environment has “substantially shifted” since the launch of LOCSU’s three-year strategy, “the pledges continue to hold true and are even more relevant now.”

“We are incredibly proud that, during the first year of our new strategy, we achieved more with less, delivered against all of our planned objectives and continued to strengthen the support available to LOCS,” she said.

Foster added: “We look forward to building on the successes of the past year and continuing to enhance, enable and empower LOCs as we move confidently into the future together.”