Eyecare scheme reducing waiting times and saving money

Dispensing optician Sid Maher said it allowed them to understand what the patient had been through since they last saw them

An award winning scheme to cut waiting times for eye patients is saving an NHS trust £250,000 a year.

At the moment, digital records are not generally shared between optometrists and hospitals, but high street opticians in Gloucestershire are now able to access hospital eye examinations, images and statistics.

The OphthalSuite Community Ophthalmic link system enables community optometrists to access patient's hospital eye health records quickly and securely.

Programme Director of Clinical Programmes at NHS Gloucestershire, Kerry O'Hara said: "We are so proud of the difference it is making."

"Patients are benefiting from care closer to home and we are reducing travel to hospital, saving costs and ultimately improving the experience for anyone who needs it," she added.

Launched in 2022, the system was developed by BlueWorks OIMS, NHS Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Gloucestershire Local Optical Committee.

The first of its kind, the system has since won an award for Most Impactful Use of Technology on Clinical Practice at the Health Service Journal Partnership Awards.

Kerry O'Hara said the system was saving the NHS money

Dr Graham Mennie, clinical lead for the programme for NHS Gloucestershire and chair of the Gloucestershire Eye Health Clinical Programme Group, said: "We now have all 66 optical practices in the county signed up, as well as 250 optometrists and dispensing opticians signed up for the project."

"The concept is very simple, but the hard work and collaboration has been essential to our success," he added.

Sid Maher from Gloucestershire Local Optical Committee said the access to GP letters, scans, images and data helps them "to understand what the patient has been through" in between the times opticians see them, which is normally every year or every two years.

Ann Lightfoot said the whole process makes her "happier"

Ann Lightfoot, 70, from the Sight Loss Council in Gloucestershire, who helped inspire the idea and has been partially sighted all her life, said she had always thought it "would be really good" if opticians could access and compare their records with NHS hospitals.

"They could see that perhaps nothing has really changed, so there's no need to make a hospital appointment," she said.

"I would feel much happier if an optometrist, an optician, could actually look in my eyes and tell me that nothing much has changed since the NHS had looked at them," she added.