Screening programmes are public health services that need to be managed at the level of a large population to monitor quality effectively. In the UK, this is carried out by the National Screening Committee (NSC). The first task of the NSC is to use research evidence to identify programmes that do more good than harm; the second is to make policy recommendations regarding those programmes at a reasonable cost to the state. In policy-making, the evidence for screening is often limited, and the presentation will specifically look at the success and failures of glaucoma and amblyopia screening in the UK.