Optos founder calls for routine use of system

Optos founder Douglas Anderson has described the take-up of the Optomap system as slow in the UK because unlike the US it is not viewed as part of a routine eye check.

In an interview in The Times (April 9), he pointed out that US primary care OOs do a four-year postgraduate degree, as opposed to three years as an undergraduate in the UK.

Six years after Optomap was launched, only 80 are in use in the UK compared to around 3,000 in the US, despite its obvious benefits, he said.

While in the US there was a 'pretty straightforward referral process to the next level of care if something is detected' the UK was 'diabolically protracted'. 'There's often a lack of respect from the ophthalmologists in secondary care to those in primary care. So there's nervousness on the part of some practitioners who are trying to improve their clinical performance, and a lot won't make the clinical decision. They just refer. The consequence is that 60 per cent of the referrals into the NHS are unnecessary, and if you consider the average waiting time for an ophthalmologist in the UK is 22 weeks, a lot can happen in that time,' he said.