Registered Blind and Partially Sighted Persons, Scotland 2010

Section 1: Blind Persons

There were 18,942 registered blind persons in 2010. The number registered blind has shown a drop of just over three per cent over the last year. This continues the trend of small, but steady falls since 2000. (See background note for more details).

The number of new cases registered during the year was 1,160. This is down by over seven per cent on the previous year.

In 2010, there were 3.6 people registered blind for every 1,000 people in the population of Scotland (see table 1a).

Table 1a: Number of Registered Blind Persons and New Registrations during the Year 2000-2010

¹ Care should be taken when commenting on trends as the fall in numbers between 2000 and 2002 is explained in part by improvements in reporting procedures by some local authorities.
Source: Registration of Blind and Partially Sighted Persons Return Form SWB

Just under three-quarters of registered blind persons are over the age of 65, with approximately two-thirds being over 75. There are significantly more women registered blind (61 per cent) than men (39 per cent).

Almost 44 per cent of all registered blind people are women aged 75 and over (see table 1b). This is also reflected in the new registrations where around 42 per cent of the new registered cases are women aged 75 and over.

Excluding the '75 and over' age group there is a much more even split between the sexes. (See Table 1b & Chart 1b).

Table 1b: Number of Registered Blind Persons and New Registrations by Age and Gender, 2010

Source: Registration of Blind and Partially Sighted Persons Return Form SWB

Chart 1b: Number of Registered Blind Persons and New Registrations by Age and Gender, 2010

Source: Registration of Blind and Partially Sighted Persons Return Form SWB

The number of registered blind people per 1,000 population is 3.6 for the whole of Scotland. This varies from 1.5 in Aberdeenshire to 6.0 in the City of Glasgow. A more detailed breakdown showing the rate per 1,000 population by age and sex for each Local Authority is available in Annex A.

An estimated 6,572 (35 per cent) of all registered blind persons have additional disabilities, nearly a quarter of which are deaf (22 per cent). Over 71 per cent of those with additional disabilities were over the age of 65 (see Table 1c).

Table 1c: Number of Registered Blind Persons with Additional Disabilities by Age, 2010

Source: Registration of Blind and Partially Sighted Persons Return Form SWB