Healthcall acclaimed for standards of care

Domiciliary eye care provider Healthcall Optical Services has been accredited by East Elmbridge & Mid Surrey Primary Care Trust for its work on the PCT's clinical governance programme.

East Elmbridge and Mid Surrey (EEMS) has already accredited a number of high street practices within its PCT but this accreditation is a first for the PCT as Healthcall Optical Services specialise in providing domiciliary eye care.

'Clinical governance is becoming a hot topic within the optometric profession and this will become even more evident once the new Health Bill becomes legislation,' said Arif Ladha, southern clinical director for Healthcall Optical Services.

'We are delighted at being accredited for our robust clinical governance programme. The company has invested a large degree of time and resource in developing this programme in order to deliver the best standard of care and service to all its patients.'

EEMS PCT has been working for some time to develop an accreditation programme supporting clinical governance within optometric practice and launched its scheme in the autumn of 2004.

Richard Broughton, the optometric adviser for EEMS PCT, said: 'We are delighted that there has been an increasing uptake by practices in the EEMS PCT of our clinical governance accreditation scheme and that has now been extended for the first time to a specialist provider of domiciliary services.

'Healthcall Optical Services has devoted considerable effort to put in place procedures which effectively meet the clinical governance scheme requirements and demonstrates its commitment to high standards of practice.'

He added that the scheme has highlighted the importance of clinical governance issues, which have been recognised by many optometry practices for the first time.

'In seeking accreditation practices have assessed their own service and been able to identify areas of best practice against agreed parameters and where necessary have made changes to enhance the quality of their practice,' he said.

Healthcall carries out over 75,000 eye examinations in the UK annually.