Overcoming challenges in the UK’s National Health Service

Abstract

Working in an eye clinic in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire (with its large South Asian migrant population) in the 1990s, Andy Cassels-Brown noticed the large number of young South Asian patients who presented with much more advanced keratoconus than their Caucasian counterparts, who tended to be detected much earlier. This indicated an inequality in access to eye care services which, we discovered, was made worse as the Asian patients frequently had preventable associated allergic conditions (such as allergic conjunctivitis or eczema) and a strikingly strong family history of keratoconus. Better access to eye care would permit earlier identification of family members with the condition and, these days, prevention of progression by means of cross-linking to stabilise the keratoconic cornea.

Keywords

• Health equality and equity
• Planning and management
• United Kingdom