Facilitators helped small groups of attendees
After nine previous events across the length and breadth of the British Isles over the past five months, Specsavers’ series of Mini Professional Advancement Conference (MiniPac) 2024 conferences came to a conclusion at County Hall, London on Sunday, June 23. The conferences had the overarching theme of enabling attendees to achieve or maintain their positions as ‘trusted experts’ providing the best possible care and service to patients.
‘We tailored the content of each conference to the specific location,’ said Neil Retallic, head of professional development at Specsavers. ‘In Scotland and Wales, a lot of attention has been paid to informing and supporting people to achieve independent prescriber (IP) status. In England, it is more a case of constructing the framework for the schemes that will ultimately need more IP optometrists.’
Retallic also noted that it was important for the conferences to have a wider function than solely providing continuing professional development (CPD) points. ‘It is significant for people to come together in person with their peers because it gives people the impetus to actually make changes when they return to practice life,’ he said.
CPD points were certainly not in short supply though, with 20 different CPD sessions at the London event. From this plethora of options, Optician observed two sessions in detail while also taking in snatches of other presentations and catching up with suppliers in the adjoining mini exhibition.
Marginal gains
A discussion workshop entitled ‘Marginal and clinical efficiency’ was presented by Christian Dutton (pictured right). Dutton began the session by showing an image of Sir David Brailsford, who was appointed head of British Cycling in 2003.
Dutton said that until this point Team GB had only ever won one Olympic or Paralympic medal and in the subsequent years has won a total of 66 Olympic or Paralympic medals.
The vast uptick in performance was widely credited to Brailsford’s adoption of a marginal gains approach, which involved accumulating tiny improvements to ultimately create a decisive advantage.
Dutton noted ‘if you get 1% better every day, you will become 37 times better in total over a year’ whereas ‘if you get 1% worse every day, you will decline rapidly’ and that it was up to eye care professionals to choose which of these journeys to go on. A marginal gains approach can help individuals, teams and practices, he said.
The bulk of the session involved three discussions held in small groups with facilitators joining tables and guiding attendees through the details of how the concept related to specific details in practices. The first discussion dealt with reviewing current performance and processes. The general thrust was that checking and reviewing performance is important but actually achieving efficiency can deliver benefits to both patients and businesses.
The second discussion centred around a case study of a fictional Specsavers practice with attendees asked to compare it to their own practice in terms of key patient metrics such as clinical interactions per day. Dutton said a key takeaway was to be realistic in goals and focus on the marginal and achievable rather than getting obsessed with impossible targets.
The third and final discussion dealt with recall and diary management and outlined strategies to better provide enhanced clinical services. The session finished with Dutton asking delegates to reflect on one thing that they would take away to apply in practice.
Learning disabilities
A lecture and related discussion workshop entitled ‘Learning disabilities and autism: building knowledge and expertise’ was presented by Sonal Rughani, senior mentor at SeeAbility, and Lance Camp, a member of SeeAbility’s eye care team. They spoke of the charity’s mission to support and campaign for better eye care for people with learning disabilities.
Rughani noted that people with learning disabilities are 10 times more likely to have eye issues than the general population, and that rises to 28 times more likely for children. Over half of the pupils SeeAbility has tested had a vision problem, while four out of 10 pupils in special schools the charity has worked in have no history of eye care. 75% of the children with no history of eye care had autism and 36% of all children seen needed glasses.
The presenters outlined an ‘easy eye care learning disability pathway’ that links with GPs through annual health checks, and gave advice on history, symptoms and communication. Rughani also noted that well-fitting frames are absolutely vital as the patient may not be able to communicate discomfort effectively.
The subsequent discussion workshop centred on two case studies on two different child patients with Down’s syndrome and autism, respectively.
