In focus: Commissioning Cues

The Covid-19 Urgent Eyecare Service (Cues) was developed by the Local Optical Committee Support Unit (Locsu) out of necessity to differentiate between urgent, emergency and essential eye care during the coronavirus pandemic. It was designed to put in place a service that provided the opportunity for all practices that wanted to get involved with delivering care to patients.

Richard Whittington, CEO of Locsu, explained that Cues was predicated on three principles: ‘The first thing was it had to facilitate the ability for patients to be seen virtually where possible. Secondly, following that virtual consultation, a patient may need to be seen face to face and that face to face appointment might require a combination of different professionals being involved in how the care is going to be delivered.’