Covid: Keeping you updated 4

In Optician 17.04.2020, we covered handwashing and reducing viral transmission. To complement this, I recommend readers take a look at a useful summary recently produced by the AOP about keeping the practice environment and communal surfaces sterile.¹

Some key points worth emphasising:

Figure 1: Ready to deep clean

Last week finally saw some clarification from NHS England about the need for the primary care community to be able to support overworked secondary care by allowing eye care practitioners to manage as many eye concerns as possible without them taking up valuable hospital time and resources.

Throughout the UK, we are now seeing new care pathways allowing for remote consultations, face-to-face consultation in community practice of specified cases requiring treatment or examination, and a careful triaging of those cases requiring hospital treatment. A nice summary of the NHS England CUES (COVID-19 Urgent Eyecare Service) is to be found on the College of Optometrists (CoO) website.² There is also a note that ‘We recognise that in many parts of England services similar to this are not yet in place and urge all CCGs to commission urgent eye care services as soon as possible.’