Practice helps develop scheme

A one-year pilot glaucoma referral refinement programme is under way in Cambridge involving an optical practice, a hospital and a university.

Optometrists at the Vision and Eye Research Unit (VERU) at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and Clamp Optometrists are assisting Addenbrooke's hospital in Cambridge by assessing patients referred by their GPs with suspected glaucoma.

If the eye condition is confirmed then the optometrists refer the patient to Addenbrooke's hospital for treatment.

Daniel Hardiman-McCartney, managing director at Clamp Optometrists, said: 'We can offer a convenient city centre location with the same training and equipment that you get in our local hospital. The one-year pilot is very exciting, if patients like it, it will be a model that can be duplicated throughout the UK.'