Labour will send patients to Specsavers and other traditional opticians to reduce NHS waiting lists.
It wants private providers to carry out routine checks and scans to free up NHS specialists for more complex procedures.
There are currently 613,000 patients on NHS waiting lists for eye care, 15,000 of whom have been waiting for more than a year.
The party says some patients have had to wait up to five years for treatment, while research by the Association of Optometrists last year found 551 patients suffered vision loss due to delayed appointments.
Wes Streeting said: ‘Thousands of patients have been waiting more than a year for eye care, putting their sight at risk.
There are currently 613,000 patients on NHS waiting lists for eye care, 15,000 of whom have been waiting for more than a year.
‘The opticians in the high street stores have the equipment and staff to carry out basic checks and examinations. The Labour Party will work with them to ensure that patients receive the treatment they need.
‘This is just one of the ways Labour will reform the NHS and use spare capacity in the private sector to overcome the Conservative backlog and reduce NHS waiting lists.’
Freedom of information requests showed one patient at Whittington Health NHS Trust in London waited five years for eye care.
Another at Mid and South Essex Trust waited four years, the data showed.
The shadow health secretary also suggested that doctors should be paid less for overtime to help clear the NHS backlog.
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As part of his pledge for 40,000 extra appointments and procedures every week, he suggested that overtime to reduce the NHS waiting list should be limited to time and a half.
Doctors’ union BMA recommends consultants charge up to £161 an hour for daytime overtime and £269 an hour for evening and night work – roughly three times their contracted rate.
While it ultimately comes down to hospitals and staff, he told the Health Service Journal he does not want them to “waste money”.
He said: ‘If we win the election we will try to give trusts and integrated care boards the freedom and flexibility to determine how best to deliver those appointments locally, because it will look different in different places.
“What we are not willing to do is throw good money after bad money.”
But the Conservatives rejected Labour’s plans, adding that Wales’s Labour-run NHS had the longest waiting times in Britain.
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said: “If Labour had a credible plan to reduce waiting lists, it would be implementing it in Labour-governed Wales. Instead, waiting lists are at a record high and patients are waiting eight weeks longer on average than patients in England.
‘This is a preview of what Keir Starmer’s ‘plan’ for the rest of the UK looks like. A Labour supermajority would give Keir Starmer unchecked power to do exactly the same thing in England – and to fund it he would have to raise taxes by at least £2,094 for every working household.
‘Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives have taken bold action to reduce waiting lists at the fastest pace in more than a decade outside the pandemic. We have recruited record numbers of doctors and nurses and opened 160 community diagnostic centres, which will carry out 7 million extra checks, tests and scans to ensure patients get the care they need.
‘Only 130,000 people who are thinking of voting for the Reform Party or the Liberal Democrats can avoid a Labour supermajority if they stick to the plan and vote Conservative on Thursday.’
