WET AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION

That this House acknowledges that up to 19,000 people needlessly go blind each year due to a devastating and treatable condition called wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD); deplores the failure of primary care trusts (PCTs) to provide access to treatments to prevent blindness for people with AMD; acknowledges that the failure of PCTs to fund these treatments is often due to limitations in budgets; and calls on the Government to ensure that the NHS is adequately funded to provide these treatments and that PCTs are instructed explicitly by the Department of Health to make these treatments available on diagnosis of the condition, on the basis that treatments can prevent blindness and are cost effective compared with the burden on the state of caring for blind people.