Yes / Background: There are a number of limitations to the present primary eye care system in the UK. Patients with
minor eye conditions typically either have to present to their local hospital or GP, or face a charge when visiting
eye care professionals (optometrists). Some areas of the UK have commissioned enhanced community services to
alleviate this problem; however, many areas have not. The present study is a needs assessment of three areas
(Leeds, Airedale and Bradford) without a Minor Eye Conditions Service (MECS), with the aim of determining whether
such a service is clinically or economically viable.
Method: A pro forma was developed for optometrists and practice staff to complete when a patient presented whose
reason for attending was due to symptoms indicative of a problem that could not be optically corrected. This form
captured the reason for visit, whether the patient was seen, the consultation funding, the outcome and where the
patient would have presented to if the optometrists could not have seen them. Optometrists were invited to
participate via Local Optical Committees. Results were submitted via a Google form or a Microsoft Excel document and
were analysed in Microsoft Excel.
Results: Seventy-five percent of patients were managed in optometric practice. Nine and 16% of patients required
subsequent referral to their General Practitioner or hospital ophthalmology department, respectively. Should they not
have been seen, 34% of patients would have presented to accident and emergency departments and 59% to their
general practitioner. 53% of patients paid privately for the optometrist appointment, 28% of patients received a free
examination either through use of General Ophthalmic Service sight tests (9%) or optometrist good will (19%) and
19% of patients did not receive a consultation and were redirected to other providers (e.g. pharmacy, accident and
emergency or General Practitioner). 88% of patients were satisfied with the level of service. Cost-analyses revealed a
theoretical cost saving of £3198 to the NHS across our sample for the study period, indicating cost effectiveness.
Conclusions: This assessment demonstrates that a minor eye condition service in the local areas would be economically
and clinically viable and well received by patients.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/17349 |
| Date | 03 October 2019 |
| Creators | Swystun, Alexander G., Davey, Christopher J. |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, Published version |
| Rights | © The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated., CC-BY |
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