Alder Hey: Bright Futures in Focus!
2 February 2026
Primary Eyecare Services is working in partnership with Alder Hey Hospital to deliver a new Post Vision Screening (PVS) Service for children in Sefton and Liverpool. Instead of travelling to hospital, children flagged during school vision screenings can now receive a full, enhanced sight test at their local optometry practice, bringing care closer to home, reducing pressure on Hospital Eye Services and giving families quicker, more convenient access to the support they need. This community-based approach streamlines the pathway, ensures only children who truly require specialist hospital care are referred onwards and supports the NHS 10-Year Plan by shifting more services into neighbourhood settings.
Primary Eyecare Services are proud to partner with Alder Hey Hospital to provide a Post Vision Screening (PVS) Service, for children based within Sefton and Liverpool localities. The PVS Service is an integral service part of our children’s pathways, which looks to provide enhanced sight tests to children of reception age who have been identified during school vision screenings as having vision below the expected standard. Children are then referred into the service for a full assessment at their local optometry practice, instead of in a formal hospital setting of Alder Hey Hospital.
The service looks to provide a community service for children, offering high-quality clinical assessments and spectacle dispensing closer to home without the need to attend Hospital Eye Services (HES). The vision assessment consists of cycloplegic refraction, binocular vision assessment, ocular health examination and dispensing where appropriate with follow-ups at 6 weeks and 18 weeks. Previously, Alder Hey would conduct visual screening tests in schools for kids of reception age, in Sefton and Liverpool. However, if it was flagged that a child had a problem with their vision at the school screening, they would be immediately referred to Alder Hey for assessment. Primary Eyecare Services’ new service allows children to have full optometric assessments at a local optometry practice and not in a hospital setting. If the local practice identifies a problem needing orthoptic or ophthalmology care, then the child will be referred directly to Alder Hey. The launch of the Alder Hey Children’s PVS Service is being supported by the Liverpool and Sefton Local Optical Committees (LOCs).
This new service creates a much more streamlined process, ensuring only the patients requiring Hospital Eye Services (HES) care, are referred to HES. This service looks to back the new 10-Year Plan, creating a shift of bringing more services out of hospitals and into on neighbourhood settings – allowing community-based eye care to be prioritised. Within the last 12 months, Primary Eyecare Services with our local practice network are proud to have seen 52,000 children for a full vision assessment, providing timely access to care for children where a visual deficiency is suspected.
A spokesperson for Alder Hey’s eye clinic said, “Being able to see clearly in school affects education and is key to improving life chances. Over 50% of children who do not pass their school eye test need glasses to help them see, so when children don’t pass the vision screening test it is important for them to have fast access to a local, children’s optician.” This new partnership will increase access and choice of local appointments for parents, reduce time out of school and work whilst increasing capacity at Alder Hey.