Anne Streather is Chief Executive of Cam Sight, the Cambridgeshire charity that provides practical and emotional support to people with sight loss, helping them to maintain their independence and quality of life.
Anne came to Cam Sight having already spent 20 years working diligently in the voluntary sector in Cambridgeshire. And her experience and dedication have proved instrumental in helping the organisation move forward - expanding its services and extending its reach within the local community.
Anne has been the driving force in ensuring there is an equitable visual impairment service for people within our region. She acts as the voice of the sight-impaired community, and as Co-ordinator of the Cambridgeshire Vision Partnership, Anne has collaborated with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group, Acute Trust and Cambridgeshire County Council to ensure that high-quality service provision for sight-impaired people is at the centre of any new health and social care plans.
Our University has long enjoyed close links with Cam Sight, and this mutually beneficial relationship has grown even stronger in recent years. We have collaborated directly on projects to evaluate the impact of Cam Sight’s work, enabling the charity to validate its service provision, and aiding Anglia Ruskin both in terms of research output and, ultimately, leading to the development of a College of Optometrists’ funded research project for one of our postgraduate students.
Anne has also supported our University by bringing our latest research projects to the attention of commissioning groups. Her recommendation to the Thomas Pocklington Trust proved instrumental in bringing the England Vision Strategy Conference to our Cambridge campus earlier this year, enabling us to showcase our Eye Clinic, and to raise the profile of our teaching programmes and our research in the field of visual impairment.
Our University benefits from our relationship with Cam Sight in many ways. All final year Optometry students take part in a Cam Sight training session, which introduces them to the full range of voluntary sector services available to the visually impaired.
In addition, we have developed a healthy referral system between Cam Sight and the Anglia Ruskin University Eye Clinic, creating a seamless patient experience, and providing a valuable opportunity for our students to engage with low-vision patients.
Cam Sight also teaches sighted guiding techniques to our students, and has provided volunteering opportunities for Anglia Ruskin students as befrienders, and as helpers in their equipment centre.
The University’s connections with Cam Sight have also been invaluable in our research. Several PhD students have been able to complete their projects with the aid of participants recruited from Cam Sight.
Thanks to Anne, this close collaboration between Cam Sight and our University continues to deliver enormous benefits for our staff and students, and most importantly, Cambridgeshire’s visually impaired community.
Anne’s passion for ensuring that patients receive the best possible service close to their home means we all benefit from her continued hard work.
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