The program, called KeepSight, has been developed by Diabetes Australia in partnership with Specsavers, Vision 2020 Australia and the Australian Government and is an opportunity to prevent diabetes-related blindness by detecting problems early when they are treatable.

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People registered with the National Diabetes Services Scheme and those who sign up to the service will receive important eye health information and notifications when they have appointments due.

The initiative is being celebrated by local optometrists who say it is critical that people with diabetes have regular eye health checks and without reminders, many people with diabetes don't have the health checks that they need.

Specsavers Corrimal optometrist and co-owner, Leslie Wong said, "On the South Coast, there are currently about 38,312 people*^ living with diabetes. Of those, we know about 19,156 aren't having regular eye health checks and 5,747 have already been diagnosed with a vision threatening eye condition.

"Unfortunately, this means people going blind who shouldn't be. KeepSight is a huge step forward in the fight against diabetes-related blindness and will target those most at risk in a systematic way to ensure people with diabetes are accessing eye checks for early detection and early treatment," Leslie said.

Diabetes Australia CEO Professor Greg Johnson says KeepSight's aim is to make it easier for people to remember to schedule eye checks.

"Diabetes is a complex condition and people with diabetes need to have a range of regular health checks and tests - many people with diabetes are not even aware they need to have their eyes checked.

"Once people are registered with KeepSight, they'll receive reminders and prompts to have regular diabetes eye checks. If you have diabetes, it only takes a minute to register at keepsight.org.au.

"Your details will be securely held by Diabetes Australia and only used to help you keep your sight."

In another step to aid early detection, Specsavers Corrimal, Dapto, Shellharbour, Warrawong and Wollongong recently introduced hospital-grade 3D diagnostic technology, OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography), for even more detailed eye information.

With these scans now being included in eye health checks for all patients in Illawarra at no additional cost, Specsavers is embarking on the most extensive every-patient eye disease screening program in the area to date.

"We are improving our detection rates of diabetic eye disease and are able to more accurately grade diabetic retinopathy, transforming the way we care for our patients to deliver a new standard in eye health assessment and patient care," Leslie added.

KeepSight is funded through a public-private partnership with the Australian Government funding $1 million to commence development of the program in the first year and Specsavers committing to co-funding the program, investing $1 million a year for five years. Bayer is also providing some funding towards the initiative.

People with diabetes can register for reminders at keepsight.org.au

*Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute and Centre for Eye Research Australia. ^National Diabetes Services Scheme (SE NSW PHN).