Eye Health – how to help your drivers protect their eyesight

National Eye Health Week runs through to the 24 September, offering us all a timely reminder about the importance of eye health, especially for commercial haulage drivers and anyone driving vehicles at work.
You may think a sight test is only needed to check whether vision needs correction, either with glasses or contact lenses. But there are other important reasons to have a regular sight test. A sight test is a vital check on the health of your eyes and includes detection of eye conditions such as the early signs of glaucoma, which can be treated if they are found early enough, or diabetes and high blood pressure. Many of these conditions can be treated successfully, avoiding potential sight loss, which currently affects around 2million people in the UK.

Here’s our five top tips:

1. Ensure all your drivers have a regular eye test. The NHS recommends having one at least every 2 years and that it is carried out by a qualified optometrist or an ophthalmic medical practitioner.

2. Encourage all your drivers to eat well, especially when they are out on the road and help them understand that a poor diet can put their eyesight at risk. Awareness of the link between diet and good eye health is low – a recent survey found sixty per cent of people living in the UK had no idea that what they eat can affect the health of their eyes. Antioxidants can help to prevent retinal damage. Foods that are recommended for eye health include broad leafy greens such as kale and spinach, brightly coloured fruit and vegetables such as carrots, orange peppers and oranges, oily fish like salmon, tuna and mackerel and eggs.

3. Encourage drivers to take more regular exercise. Lack of exercise contributes significantly to several eye conditions and reduces the risk of sight loss from narrowing or hardening of the arteries, high blood pressure and diabetes.

4. Support your drivers to stop smoking. Smoking is one of the biggest risk factors for developing macular degeneration and increases the risk of developing cataracts.

5. Check that drivers are wearing suitable eye protection in bright sunlight. Sunglasses should have the CE mark on them which ensures they offer the right level of ultraviolet (UV) protection.

6. Share this NHS link about eye health with your staff – https://vimeo.com/233716331

Andrew Bourne & Company is an independent haulage insurance specialist. We actively support companies in the haulage and logistics industry to improve driver health and wellbeing. We work closely with business owners that want to invest in improving the wellbeing of their drivers and on site. We offer support and advice for haulage businesses so that they can operate well-managed businesses and demonstrate reduced risk which in turn, keeps premiums as low as possible.
If you’d like to speak to us, call David Crowther or one of the team at Andrew Bourne and Co. on 0116 272 0770.