Conference: Eye care tomorrow

Not surprisingly, there were many presentations at this year’s Optometry Tomorrow conference that looked at the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on eye care and how this may influence the nature of future care throughout the UK. There were also several presentations offering an update on OCT assessment and the various ways of assessing anterior eye structures.

Zoe Richmond, clinical lead of optometry at NHS England National Eyecare Recovery and Transformation Programme, looked at how the recent pandemic had influenced the way we provide urgent eye care in England.

Richmond began by outlining a number of studies showing how eye care has changed in the past couple of years. In England, the waiting list for ophthalmology has increased every month from December 2020 to a staggering 1000+ people per 100,000 in March 2022. That said, the numbers waiting for longer than 52 weeks to be seen has dropped. Moorfields Eye Hospital experienced a significant reduction in total attendance numbers for urgent and emergency care, despite the clinicians readying themselves for a surge from other hospitals. Worryingly, this drop is related to patients neglecting symptoms of visual loss. As a result of this, 67% of survey responses reported a reduced number of retinal detachment surgeries.