Bill Harvey: Moving on up

‘It has to be better for our patients to see someone with four years’ training, and many years’ experience with the eye, who has a slit lamp and possibly an OCT, rather than seeing a GP practice nurse or someone in A&E who may have only a few hours training in the eye.’

This is a direct quote from the Royal College of Ophthalmologists Way Forward project. The project was commissioned by the RCOphth ‘to identify current methods of working and schemes devised by ophthalmology departments in the UK to help meet the increasing demand in ophthalmic services.’ The increasing demand for hospital eye services is not being met and continues to grow, constituting nearly 10% of all outpatient appointments and 6% of the surgery in the UK.