Optometry and ophthalmic dispensing students at City University London have stepped into a pristine environment to begin their journey into the profession thanks to new investment at the university’s City Sight clinic.
The new purpose-built clinic on Northampton Square, with 23 consulting rooms, has replaced the university’s Fight for Sight clinic, near Old Street.
Latest technology and specialist clinics introduced there mean students can be thrown straight into the deep end with comprehensive visual assessments and blended healthcare.
As part of the move, City Sight has tied up with speech and language facilities at City – delivering a range of patient services under one roof. In this way, the university continues to evolve its approach amid competition from new optometry qualifications at Hertfordshire, and now Portsmouth, taking the total number of courses into double figures.
The City clinic was officially opened on January 19 in a ceremony featuring MP and speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow. He formally opened the two new clinics which would enable City to ‘deliver cutting-edge healthcare and training to students, researchers and patients’.
[CaptionComponent="2172"]Roshni Samra, professional clinic manager at City Sight, said: ‘Fight for Sight delivered over 2,500 eye exams and 920 contact lens appointments in 2015; City Sight will continue this, not only offersing free NHS eye examinations for eligible groups, but also providing spectacle dispensing, paediatric clinics, binocular vision clinics, visual impairment assessments and visual stress assessments.’
The clinic’s new kit includes a Lees screen and 10 new keratometers. Furthermore, the clinic uses Topcon’s i-clarity patient management software, so all results and scans are networked from instruments into the patient’s record allowing it to trial paperless records.
Chris Hull, professor of optics of vision and divisional lead for optometry and visual sciences at City University London, also welcomed the new clinic’s move onto campus: ‘It provides outstanding facilities for training optometry students keeping City at the forefront of education provision. Its location, at the heart of the university where the clinics started in 1927, allows us to provide outstanding care using the latest equipment for those in the university and local community.’
The clinic is next to the Roberta Williams Speech and Language Therapy Centre, which provides services and educational resources in vision and language sciences.
It will continue to deliver eye care services to the public and
local businesses, with its 30 optometrists, five orthoptists and six DOs.
These services include comprehensive eye examinations using 3D OCT cameras to screen conditions including glaucoma, diabetes and age-related macular degeneration. But the clinic also has specialist clinics for children, contact lenses, binocular vision problems, specific learning difficulties, visual impairment and colour vision defects. In 2015, Fight for Sight saw around 300 children in paediatric clinics.
Meanwhile, the Roberta Williams Speech and Language Therapy Centre, named in honour of Professor Roberta Williams who died last year having worked as a speech and language therapist at City for over 30 years, will continue to offer a range of interventions. Among these are services for people who stammer, those with special educational needs and children and adults with deafness. The centre also provides supervision and training for speech and language therapy students and is active in research.
Tools and training have been provided to help students go on to become leaders in their respective fields, a City statement vowed.
Professor Stanton Newman, dean of the School of Health Sciences at City University London, added: ‘The launch of these centres continues our commitment to leading care for those in London and the local community, but also the best possible education for our students and environment for our academics. Our students, with the excellent education they will receive, will also gain the best possible clinical training experience from the latest technology, enabling them to go on and become leaders in healthcare.’
