Editorial

Welcome to this issue of the British Journal of Visual Impairment. I hope I have complied in this issue some very useful research papers (and two interesting book reviews) that you feel are relevant and important for practice and further research. This issue has two papers which focus on issues of deaf blindness, two papers focus on the introduction of Unified English Braille (UEB) to the United Kingdom, and the remaining papers focus on very real issues of transport, the experiences of patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) receiving anti-vascular endothelial growth factor therapy, and the importance of ‘strategic chat time’ for people who are blind or low vision. I hope you enjoy these papers as much as the reviewers and I have.

I would like to take the opportunity of this editorial to bring to your attention some information that I have found informative, as I have attended a series of conferences around Europe and I wanted to disseminate some of this information as I would like to see some of this being fed back into the journal through specific research papers.

At the Vision 2020 UK Conference, which took place on 11 June, the UK Vision Strategy for 2013–2018 was launched; this strategy sets the direction for the whole of the sight loss and eye care sector for the United Kingdom. (Details can be found about the strategy on the Vision 2020 UK website, as can the case for the strategy). As Editor of the journal, I am particularly interested in receiving articles that show how this strategy has impact across the varying sectors. Although strategies and collaborative approaches are important, what is necessary is the evidence that shows how the various approaches are working, and as such, the journal can be used as a vehicle for such dissemination of the approaches used. Naturally, this is not restricted to the United Kingdom but worldwide.

Also at the Vision 2020 Conference, the results of the Sight Loss and Vision Priority Setting Project were announced. This project aimed to give a set of unanswered questions that have been prioritised by patients, carers, and eye health professionals. These questions then can be used by researchers to investigate what people from these groups have deemed as important. It was also noted that these priorities will also be made known to a wide variety of research funders so that support and funds can be directed to groups that have again identified what they consider to be a priority.

The research identified 12 categories which were considered priority areas. They are listed below.

Within each of these priority areas are a set of questions that patients, carers, and eye health professionals considered important. So, if we take, for example, the category ‘child-onset disorders’ we find (as in all categories) 10 priority questions.

Child-onset disorders:

Each category then has a set of questions that can shape some of the future research on visual impairment. I therefore would urge all researchers to look at these priorities and to consider how, with a collaborative lens, we can work together to achieve some of these answers. For further information about the project led by a steering group of eye sector experts, including Fight for Sight, the College of Optometrists and others please see the main website for this www.sightlosspsp.org.uk.

For those whose research is not within these areas (e.g. research within a historic stance or a pure education, or employment lens), the British Journal of Visual Impairment of course will still be happy to accept any outstanding research and/or practice papers.

At the International Council for Education of People With Visual Impairment (ICEVI) European Conference in Turkey this July, there was a strong focus on practitioners, educationalists, and even parents on using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) developed by the World Health Organization (WHO). As noted at the ICEVI conference, the ICF is playing a driving role to determine how support/help and practice can be offered. As the ICF addresses

with respect to the age groups

it is clear that it can and should be used more in research that is published within this journal. As such, can I make a simple call for researchers to look at the ICF and to critically examine its use and function, and to determine whether indeed using the ICF has impact within the field. I am happy to receive papers that are both critical and supportive of the ICF, as this way, we can really address some of the issues raised not only in the UK Vision Strategy but also the research priorities listed above and beyond.

As you know, the next issue of the journal in January 2014 will be a Special Issue around the concept of ‘Beauty and Access to the Arts’, and by looking at the papers that have been submitted, I think this will be a very special issue.

Finally back to this issue, we can see how some of these papers start (internationally) to link together, to address some of the themes identified within the Vision Strategy but also begin to consider some of the research priorities.