For Professionals

Are you supporting someone with inherited sight loss? We are here to help.

Retina UK* is a national charity. We offer information and support to people affected by inherited sight loss to enable them to lead better lives today and fund medical research to accelerate the search for treatments for the future. We also support professionals working with them.

We are here for you. You could be:

An Ophthalmologist
An Eye Care Liaison Officer
A Vision Rehab Specialist
A Qualified Teacher of the Visionally Impaired
A dispensing Optician or Optometrist
A sight loss charity professional

*Retina UK was previously known as RP Fighting Blindness and the British Retinitis Pigmentosa Society (BRPS).

Thank you to Retina UK for supporting people with inherited sight loss so fantastically on their journeys and for educating the rest of us to commit to making our corner of the world a more understanding and inclusive place.

What is inherited sight loss?

Inherited progressive sight loss is caused by a range of rare genetic conditions. We specialise in those which affect the retina. Download our Guide to conditions covered by Retina UK.

Inherited retinal dystrophies (sometimes called IRDs) are the most common cause of sight loss in the working age population of the UK[1], affecting tens of thousands of people. Diagnosis can be made at any age and leads to partial or full loss of sight.

Diagnosis

Early signs of an inherited retinal dystrophy are sometimes picked up during a routine eye test. The optician will refer on to an ophthalmologist at an eye clinic for further tests, leading to a formal diagnosis. The cause of these conditions is genetic and they cannot be prevented. Progression can vary from person to person. Some people are affected as children and others as adults. Everyone’s experience is different.

[1] *https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/2/e004015