Read the latest RCOphth news updates and guidance here.
Earlier this month, the first-ever Holyrood Eye Health Day was held in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. This was a great opportunity to highlight the challenges facing ophthalmology services in Scotland to Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) and the Scottish Government.
To support the College’s work to address the challenges to long term sustainable patient care created by the growing role of independent sector providers, we are inviting members to join working groups on the cataract referral process and the postoperative pathway.
Mel Hingorani is RCOphth Honorary Secretary and Joint Clinical Lead of the National Eye Care Recovery and Transformation Programme (NECRTP) and is a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital. In this article, she reflects in her College capacity on what has been achieved by the programme so far and what still needs to happen.
With public satisfaction in the NHS falling amid rising waiting times and staff shortages, RCOphth President Professor Bernie Chang outlines the urgent need to increase ophthalmology workforce capacity alongside investing in recovery services.
RCOphth President Professor Bernie Chang explains the positive action being taken by NHS England through its cataract specification, which the College has supported to develop.
The government and NHS England published a joint plan last week setting out how they intend to support the recovery of elective services over the next three years. RCOphth Policy Manager Jordan Marshall summarises the key implications for ophthalmology services.
In a debate in Westminster this week, Members of Parliament from various parties discussed how to better support eye care services. This included focusing on workforce shortages in ophthalmology, the need for better integration and a national strategy for eye health.
The Royal College of Ophthalmologists is proud to be supporting World Sight Day 2021 with the theme #Loveyoureyes. World Sight Day is an opportunity for everyone to be aware of eye health and the impact of sight loss. Globally, at least 1 billion people have near or distance vision impairment that could be prevented or has yet to be addressed.
A joint parliamentary select committee report published yesterday has assessed some of the key decisions the UK has taken during the pandemic and lessons that needed to be learnt. While acknowledging there were some areas where the UK performed well, such as vaccine development and rollout, the report overall is very critical of the UK approach. These criticisms include ‘a degree of groupthink’ on the initial decisions taken on lockdowns and social distancing and stopping community testing early in the pandemic being a ‘serious mistake’. The report also importantly emphasised that a lack of NHS capacity was a significant problem.
In January 2019 The Royal College of Ophthalmologists alerted members to changes arising from The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), authorising the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) to collect performance and cost information about private healthcare.
