NHS commissioners should make better use of the expertise within primary eye care and optimise existing contracts, NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSEI) has recommended.
The recommendations, which are part of NHSEI’s National Eye Care Recovery & Transformation Programme, called for ‘fully serviced and utilised’ primary eye care contracts and an assessment of potential for increased capacity and activity.
Urgent eye care services, cataract pathways and glaucoma pathways were highlighted by NHSEI for immediate optimisation. For urgent care services, it was recommended that an agreement should be made on the process in which patients were redirected from hospital departments to practices, along with better awareness among NHS 111 directory of services teams of the services provided by primary eye care.
FODO - The Association for Eye Care Providers said: ‘As national optical representation bodies we welcome this guidance and its strong support for the continuation and expansion of extended primary eye care.
‘These services are able to tackle outpatient waits, reduce the risk of avoidable blindness and address hospital capacity pressures which existed prior to Covid, and have increased significantly as a result of the pandemic.’