The new referral Eye Care Management Service started on the 27th September 2010. The purpose of this service is to reduce the number of referrals into Secondary Care by 30% and help them achieve the 18 weeks target and to address the unplanned cost pressures for ophthalmology. By more patients being managed in the community we should be able to provide patients improved access to eye care services.

The service will run initially for a 6 month period, after which we should have monitored and audited the service enough to decide how eye care referrals and services should be managed in the future. We are working closely with Ophthalmology and in addition they are also looking at their Ophthalmology pathways. It is hoped that we can then provide between us a quality service where patients will benefit from any developments and/or changes we implement.