Evaluation of postal detection of registrable blindness.

The registration of persons under the National Assistance Act, 1948, entitles them to the social support of the Welfare Department of the local authority and usually to various statutory and other financial benefits and concessions. Its purpose is primarily social and not statistical. The existence of a list of persons suffering from severely restricted vision and having appended diagnoses has led to the Register becoming a source of national statistics about blindness. As registration is voluntary and the definition of blindness rather vague ("so blind as to be unable to perform any work for which eyesight is essential") the Register is far from ideal for such a purpose. This paper describes a method of ascertaining the prevalence of blindness and a comparison between the results obtained and the register.