Our aims

To ensure that the NHS is able to achieve the best possible health outcomes for patients and service users, BIOS welcomes the opportunity to work in partnership with GPs and their consortia.

What is BIOS?

BIOS is the professional and educational body for the UK and Republic of Ireland and BOS is the Trades Union body for the UK. Orthoptics is a small profession of fewer than 2,000 in the British Isles; its all-graduate workforce comes from two universities, Liverpool and Sheffield. These universities provide a workforce for all four UK countries and the Republic of Ireland. The workforce is predominantly female with many working part-time and working in the NHS. Orthoptists deal with patients of all ages from premature babies who need visual assessment to the elderly who may have double vision due to age-related macular degeneration or ocular muscle difficulties.

What do orthoptists do?

Orthoptists diagnose and manage disorders of vision and binocular vision problems. Many do pre-school screening, working in schools and special schools, while others work in stroke units enabling speedier rehabilitation with patients after stroke and/or acquired brain injury suffering from double vision, visual field defects and visual inattention.

Orthoptists are also members of the opthalmology team working in glaucoma and cataract clinics, often undertaking work previously done by junior medical staff, as well as electro diagnosis, medical photography and cataract clinics.

Others work alongside neuro opthalmologists and other allied health professionals in falls units. Orthoptists are ideally placed to ensure effective services for patients, are very versatile and provide exceptional value for money as part of the eye healthcare team.