NHS (General Ophthalmic Services) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025: BRIA
This business and regulatory impact assessment (BRIA) outlines the impact of new regulations enabling independent prescribing optometrists and ophthalmic medical practitioners to manage complex anterior eye conditions in the community. The changes aim to reduce hospital pressures, improve patient access, and support sustainable care.
Introduction
The Scottish Government published its NHS Operational Improvement Plan[1] on 31 March 2025. This committed, amongst other things, to support Independent Prescribing (IP) optometrists and ophthalmic medical practitioners (OMP) to manage patients with certain anterior eye conditions under General Ophthalmic Services (GOS), reducing the number of these patients needing to be referred to the Hospital Eye Service (HES). In doing so, this will free up workforce capacity within the HES to manage patients with more chronic sight-threatening eye conditions.
The interim measures phase of the implementation of this policy – the GOS Specialist Supplementary service (GOS-SS) – commenced on 1 August 2025[2].
An SSI (the National Health Service (General Ophthalmic Services) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025) is required to deliver the full implementation phase of GOS-SS. The SSI will make amendments to the National Health Service (General Ophthalmic Services) (Scotland) Regulations 2006[3] (“2006 Regulations”) to, amongst other things, enable Health Boards to enter into arrangements with IP optometrists and OMPs for the provision of GOS in the Health Board’s area to patients who have a listed anterior eye condition. Such patients can self-present to the IP optometrist/OMP or can be referred to the IP optometrist/OMP from another optometrist/OMP following a GOS eye examination.
Contact
Email: eyecare@gov.scot