World Diabetes Day and KeepSight: Access to Diabetes Care

Sunday 14 November marked World Diabetes Day (WDD) – the world’s largest diabetes awareness campaign reaching a global audience of over 1 billion people in more than 160 countries.

As we know, diabetes is the leading cause of blindness in working-age Australians. However, vision loss can be prevented with regular eye checks and early treatment.

Specsavers is working collaboratively with the eye health industry to ensure access to care, leveraging technology to improve detection and supporting initiatives such as KeepSight. This initiative aligns with World Diabetes Day 2021-23 theme of Access to Diabetes Care – If Not Now, When? It is also a timely reminder to check your eye health, with many Australians not seeking regular check-ups due to COVID-19 restrictions.

KeepSight is a national diabetes eye screening program funded by the Australian Government. Specsavers matched the funding to support the initiative, contributing $1m a year for five years. Launching in April 2019, the Australian-first initiative helps to fight against diabetes-related vision loss and blindness.

The KeepSight initiative encourages people living with diabetes to have regular eye checks. As a result, Specsavers has registered a combined 300,000 first-time and returned patients with diabetes within the first two and a half years since its launch.

With the support within our workforce firmly behind the KeepSight program, we aim to register between 80-90% of Specsavers patients with diabetes by March 2022.

While WDD is a global initiative to promote the importance of taking action to confront diabetes as a critical global health issue, Specsavers continues its focus on raising awareness through KeepSight and continues detecting and treating vision loss and blindness in Australia now and well into the future.

Click here to read more about KeepSight

Click here to read more about World Diabetes Day