We’re marking 30 years of offering the Low Vision service in Cornwall, having helped thousands of people with their sight loss journey.
iSightCornwall has been providing a specialist low vision service to the people of Cornwall on behalf of the NHS since 1994. Our service helps those who have a visual impairment to live life independently and to continue to do the things they love to do. The service can provide a range of magnifiers to help with reading, writing and crafts; different types of filter glasses which can help people deal with glare and sensitivity when they’re out and about; and helping people learn ways of using their vision, called vision strategies.
How did iSightCornwall celebrate 30 years of Low Vision?
To celebrate this incredible achievement we invited those who have been involved in the foundation and growth of Cornwall’s Low Vision service to our Annual General Meeting where iSightCornwall Chief Executive, Carole Theobald, Chief Executive of NHS Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Integrated Care Board, Kate Shields and iSightCornwall Patron and Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, Colonel Sir Edward Bolitho thanked and honoured them.
Carole gave the members, Trustees, and volunteers present a brief history of the service. It began with Juanita Reynolds, co-founder of Reynolds Opticians in Penzance and the vice-chair of iSightCornwall at the time. She was instrumental in the development of the first, and still the only, low vision service in the county at a time when low vision was a relatively new concept nationally.
Juanita set up weekly clinics at the Sight and worked with the local health authority to gain funding for the service and, thanks to her connection to Reynolds Opticians, began the offering outreach appointments with local opticians in their practices.
With each year the service continued to grow and in 1998 the charity appointed our first in-house low vision adviser, Judy Seagrove who described the role as ‘the best job she’s ever had’ and who ran the service for 7 years.
How has the Low Vision Service in Cornwall grown?
Since then, iSightCornwall has welcomed several expert Low Vision Advisers who have each helped the service to grow and offer more to the people of Cornwall. We even created a new way of helping patients over the phone during the Covid-19 pandemic which bagged us an award from Visionary – the national membership organisation for local sight loss charities.
Carole, Chief Executive of iSightCornwall, said: “We were delighted to celebrate 30 years of holding the Low Vision contract for Cornwall at our recent AGM. In the time we’ve been providing the service we have helped more than 30,000 people and we have seen the real difference Low Vision can make to people’s lives.
“I’m so proud of the service we offer, nobody else in the country offers Low Vision like we do in Cornwall, it’s unique to us and it’s thanks to working closely in partnership with the NHS and local opticians that we’re able to do this and offer this service which is an absolute benefit to the people living in Cornwall.”
Kate Shields, Chief Executive of NHS Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Integrated Care Board, added: “It was a privilege to be invited to attend iSightCornwall’s Annual General Meeting. What a pleasure it was to be surrounded by a group of people all bound by the same passionate aim of helping people with sight loss in Cornwall.
“It is a fantastic achievement to have delivered 30 years of Low Vision in Cornwall, in the NHS we are passionate about delivering services which are shaped around those who need them, putting those people right in the centre of their care and iSightCornwall’s Low Vision service is doing just that. Congratulations to the iSightCornwall team, I look forward to working together to continue helping people with sight loss in the county.”
