The National Plan for the NHS commits to challenging discrimination and shaping services around individual needs and preferences. It pledges that open access will be provided to information about treatment and services [1]. As medicines are the major mode of treatment in the NHS, access to medicines information is central to this pledge.

One group who are disadvantaged and who face discrimination is people with sight loss. Most people with sight loss are aged over 65 [2] thus giving them the additional disadvantage of older age. Within the NHS they may be significantly disadvantaged by the difficulties they experience in obtaining information about services and treatments. A majority of information is provided in standard print form, with only a few trusts offering information about important matters such as treatments and test results in alternative reading formats [3], [4]. As a result, people with sight loss either have to rely on imperfect methods, such as remembering spoken information or asking a neighbour to read medical information to them, or not have the information at all. Such imperfect information provision can result in several negative outcomes that disadvantage people with sight loss:

• the loss of privacy associated with having someone else read information about your care and treatment;
• not being fully informed about treatments and services;
• being less able to participate in decisions about treatments;
• and, perhaps most important, gaining less benefit from treatments.

This paper presents preliminary findings from exploratory in-depth interviews with 7 people with sight loss, as well as 4 'sight loss advocates' and 5 healthcare professionals. Participants were selected by means of purposive sampling and data collection involved semi-structured, face-to-face and in-depth interviews. The purpose of these interviews was to find out what medicines information needs people with sight loss had.

A thematic analysis of the interviews showed that the people with sight loss provided information relating to their beliefs about medicines and medicine taking practices. In addition, they discussed their relationships with their pharmacists, GPs and nurses and spoke about their frustrations with accessing healthcare services due to a lack of provisions for people with sight loss. Above all, the participants with sight loss, as well as the sight loss advocates were unanimous in their opinion that the current state of medicines information was not appropriate for people with sight loss. This viewpoint was echoed by the healthcare professionals (low vision services staff, GPs, community pharmacists) who took part in these interviews.

1. Pharmacy in the Future – Implementing the NHS Plan. Department of Health, London, 2000.Bruce I, et al. Blind and partially sighted adults in Britain: the RNIB survey. HMSO, London. 1997.
2. RNIB See it Right campaign. RNIB, London. 1997.
3. Raynor DK, Yerassimou N. Medicine information - leaving blind people behind?
British Medical Journal 1997.