1:30min
This Allied Health Professions Day, Optometry Australia is celebrating the vital role optometrists play as part of Australia’s larger allied health workforce, while calling for targeted, innovative strategies to ensure every Australian accesses the eye care they need.
Allied health professionals, including optometrists, are an important part of primary health care and have essential roles in the prevention, early intervention and management of eye diseases. The 2025 Allied Health Professions Day theme, ‘Stronger Together’, highlights the value of utilising the full skills of all health professionals, including optometrists in collaborative models of care which improve community health outcomes.
Collaborating to address community need
Optometry Australia’s 2025 Optometry Workforce Projections Study showed that, based on current demand for eye care, Australia currently has an oversupply of optometrists, yet there is significant unmet community need for optometric care. This mismatch represents both a challenge and an opportunity. While the workforce is strong, many Australians are not accessing the services they need, including rural and remote communities, children and young people, people with diabetes and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. What’s more, acute eye conditions – which can be managed more effectively in community optometry – drive nearly 150,000 emergency department visits and millions of GP encounters each year.
Optometry Australia CEO Skye Cappuccio said these realities highlight the untapped demand for primary eye care – and the essential role optometrists can play in meeting it.
‘Optometrists are highly trained practitioners who work every day to make sure Australians can receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time,’ said Ms Cappuccio.
‘To truly improve access, we need coordinated policy responses that make practice sustainable and rewarding, and that enable optometrists to continue delivering safe, ethical and high-quality care.’
Access challenges are not unique to optometry, and Allied Health Professions Day provides an opportunity to increase awareness of, demand for and utilisation of allied health workforces across Australia, including optometry.
‘We recognise that addressing these challenges also means creating the right conditions for optometrists to live and work where they are needed most, supporting practitioner wellbeing and clinical autonomy, and strengthening service pathways that connect care across disciplines,’ said Ms Cappuccio.
Realising the full potential of the optometry workforce also means supporting optometrists to practise to their full scope, including enabling optometrists to prescribe oral medications – without a restrictive medicines list – for eye disease where clinically appropriate. Enabling this would not only improve timely access to care, particularly in regional and remote areas, but also ease pressure on general practice and hospital systems. Optometrists already possess the therapeutic expertise to safely manage many acute and chronic eye conditions within community settings. Removing unnecessary regulatory barriers will strengthen integrated care and ensure patients receive the right treatment, sooner.
‘When allied health professions, including optometry, are supported to work collaboratively and to their full scope, Australia’s health system becomes stronger, more efficient and more equitable,’ Ms Cappuccio said.
‘This Allied Health Professions Day, we acknowledge that our members across the country play a crucial role in preventing avoidable vision loss and detecting eye diseases. We must amplify their contribution, if we are to meet true community need for eye care.’