Most patients with wet age-related macular degeneration are waiting too long for treatment, according to the latest findings.
Fewer than half of specialist eye clinics in the UK were found to meet national guidelines in a survey conducted by the Macular Disease Society (MDS).
Sufferers were being made to wait too long for both initial and follow up treatments of the condition. The survey suggested that The Royal College of Ophthalmologists' recommended waiting time of two weeks for initial treatment was met in 49.4 per cent of clinics. A further 41.8 per cent of patients waited from two to four weeks for a first appointment and 8.8 per cent for more than eight weeks.
In more than 80 per cent of clinics, patients were waiting more than the recommended four weeks for follow-up appointments. Nearly half the respondents said they were running extra clinics in the evening and at weekends to cope with demand, but care was still below par.
Winfried Amoaku, chair of the Macular Interest Group, which commissioned the study, said: 'This survey suggests that there continues to be a significant lack of resources to deliver adequate contemporary AMD services in the UK.
'The new treatment for wet AMD has been a real breakthrough but we need to ensure that patients get access to it. The NHS needs, urgently, to consider how it will meet demand for this treatment. If it doesn't, patients will lose their sight unnecessarily. It doesn't make sense to use these treatments less frequently than required, as we know the results will be poor. We can achieve much more for patients with a little more investment in resources,' added Amoaku.