After sight loss, the first weeks and months are often the hardest. Cooking a meal, reading your letters, jumping on the bus — all the small things that hold daily life together suddenly need to be relearned.
Vision rehabilitation is the specialist support that helps people do exactly that. It covers practical skills like learning to use a long cane, adapting how you cook and manage your home, getting to grips with assistive technology, and adjusting emotionally to seeing the world in a different way. Delivered well, it is genuinely life-changing.
In Scotland today, too many people cannot get that support, or are waiting far too long for it. Vision Collaborative Scotland is calling on the new Scottish Parliament — and on the local authorities that will be in the spotlight at the May 2027 elections — to take the practical steps that would change that.
The scale of the problem
Over 193,000 people in Scotland live with sight loss, a figure projected to double by 2050 as the population ages and conditions like diabetes become more common.
Unlike stroke rehabilitation, which is delivered through the NHS with national standards and consistent funding, vision rehabilitation is largely the responsibility of local authorities and the third sector. The result is a postcode lottery: the support someone receives depends heavily on where they happen to live, with waiting times ranging from a few weeks in some areas to up to two years in others.
The specialist workforce that delivers this support is declining, with many practitioners approaching retirement and no settled pipeline to replace them.
Until January 2026, there was no professional training route available in Scotland at all. [A new course at the University of Strathclyde, developed in partnership with Vision Collaborative Scotland], now offers that pathway, but without sustained investment it cannot reach the scale Scotland needs.
There is also currently no formal route to professional recognition or regulation for vision rehabilitation workers — making it harder to attract people into the profession, harder to retain them, and harder to guarantee consistent quality across the country.
Who we are
Vision Collaborative Scotland brings together ten organisations with deep expertise in sight loss and a shared commitment to change.
Our members are:
Sight Scotland and Sight Scotland Veterans (Chair and website hosting)
Visibility Scotland (Vice-chair)
Fight for Sight
Guide Dogs
Rehabilitation Workers Professional Network (RWPN)
RNIB Scotland
Scottish Sensory Hub – Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE)
Thomas Pocklington Trust
Visionary (providing a link to the vital local and regional sight loss charities)
What we are calling for
We are asking the next Scottish Government to take three specific steps.
- National quality standards for vision rehabilitation — Wherever someone lives in Scotland, they should be able to expect the same standard of specialist support. A UK National Occupational Standard for sensory services already exists and offers a strong starting point — we can learn from it and build something that works for Scotland's communities.
- Investment in training — We are calling for action to encourage more people to train as vision rehabilitation specialists by increasing access to vision rehabilitation courses at Scottish universities. This would complement existing investment from local authorities and the third sector, create a sustainable workforce pipeline, and reflect the kind of invest-to-save approach that prevents far greater costs further down the line.
- A workforce review and a route to professional recognition — A comprehensive national workforce review, developed alongside Health and Social Care Partnerships, professional bodies and the third sector, would set out future demand and identify a clear path to professional recognition and regulation. It should result in a national Workforce Plan for Vision Rehabilitation in Scotland.
Hear from people across the coalition
Behind every policy ask are real people.
Read the stories of how vision rehabilitation has changed lives on our Support After Sight Loss Case Studies page, including Frank, Mary, Ross, Frank and others who have generously shared their journeys through sight loss.
What the coalition is doing
The Support After Sight Loss campaign is active across politics, the media and the wider sector. Coalition activities include:
- Engaging directly with Scottish Government ministers and officials, including ongoing dialogue with the ministerial team appointed after the May 2026 elections.
- Briefing MSPs across all parties, with a particular focus on members of the Cross-Party Group on Visual Impairment.
- Building the case ahead of the May 2027 local government elections, when councils — the bodies responsible for delivering vision rehabilitation — will be central to the conversation.
- Sharing stories from people with sight loss through campaign video, social media and case studies, so the policy debate is grounded in real experience.
- Working alongside the University of Strathclyde to champion the new vision rehabilitation training programme and its long-term future.
- Coordinating across our member organisations so that the coalition speaks with one consistent, evidence-based voice.
- Engaging with journalists and media outlets to keep vision rehabilitation in the public conversation.
Get involved
The new Parliament and the local government elections in May 2027 are real opportunities to put vision rehabilitation on the political agenda, but we need help to do it.
Whether you have personal experience of sight loss, work in the sector, support one of our member organisations, or simply believe everyone deserves the right support after sight loss, your voice matters.
Share the campaign using #SupportAfterSightLoss, talk to your MSP and your councillors about why these changes matter, and get in touch with us using the form below to find out more about how you can help.
In the video below, you can hear from vision rehabilitation specialists and people with lived experience of sight loss, who talk more about what rehabilitation means, why it matters, and what needs to change.
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University of Melbourne Research on the Impact of Vision Rehabilitation and Habilitation
Vision Collaborative Scotland is working with the University of Melbourne and Glasgow Caledonian University on ground-breaking research into the effectiveness of vision rehabilitation and habilitation.
Vision Collaborative Scotland
Vision Collaborative Scotland is an unincorporated consortium of third-sector organisations which all work to support people with vision impairments in Scotland.
Growing the VI Rehabilitation Workforce in Scotland
Vision Collaborative Scotland has launched, in partnership with the University of Strathclyde, two new professional training courses in Vision Rehabilitation. New courses full for 2026, applications open for 2027 start.