Posted on: 12 December 2018
The demand for eye healthcare (ophthalmology) services in West Yorkshire and Harrogate increases year on year. This growing demand, particularly around age-related macular degeneration (AMD), cataracts, diabetic eye disease and glaucoma, leads to capacity issues within the system and results in longer waiting times for patients and frustrations for service providers.
To help address this problem and plan for future demand, we need to make the best possible use of existing eye healthcare services and other resources related to eye care that are already out there. Our eye healthcare partners, including hospitals, commissioners, providers, community optometrists, voluntary organisations and charities, will be working more collaboratively to focus on eye healthcare services as a whole region and not just as a group of separate places and organisations.
At our West Yorkshire and Harrogate Eye Services Event in Leeds on 29 November, the Improving Planned Care Programme team brought some of these eye healthcare partners together to discuss demand, workforce, capacity and other key challenges. Attendees shared their knowledge and ideas for potential solutions and opportunities that included:
- more engagement with the voluntary and community organisations that offer eye care support services and better integration of those services into the system;
- making sure that people can access the same quality of eye healthcare services regardless of where they live in West Yorkshire and Harrogate whilst tailoring those services to suit the local population and meet local need;
- harnessing the latest developments in technology that can offer significant benefits for eye healthcare services, whether delivered in hospital or community settings; and
- making the best use of multidisciplinary eye healthcare teams that are committed to ensuring that the valuable time of ophthalmology consultants is optimised.
Attendees also discussed the need to address the shocking statistic that around half of all sight loss is preventable. Whilst most people know that eating an unhealthy diet, being overweight, smoking, drinking alcohol and being inactive are all detrimental to our bodies, many people don’t appreciate that this also applies to the eyes. One of the key themes from the event was the need to raise awareness of the importance of making healthy lifestyle choices that can, along with appropriate and regular testing, help to prevent sight loss in older age.
As the event closed, partners were asked to take away the key themes from the day and consider which particular areas of eye healthcare they would like focus on. The Improving Planned Care Programme team will be working with the eye healthcare partners on these areas and there will be more details about these projects in the New Year.