The Royal College of Ophthalmologists collaborates with a wide range of stakeholders from ophthalmology to optometry and other partners in eye health, including independent providers, charity and industry. This diverse network across the sector means we are at the forefront of meeting changes in ophthalmic practice and the workforce needed to provide high standards of patient care. You can get involved and support this work.
Being involved means you can bring your own experiences and learnings to the work of the College and help us develop improvements in training, mentoring, and examination of members. You can take part in many ways to lead and support development of our guidance and recommendations for all those involved in providing and managing ophthalmic patient care.
Equity, diversity and inclusion is important to the RCOphth and we aim to implement EDI good practice in everything we do.
Read about our latest Equality, Diversity and Inclusion activities
Lead through College officer and committee roles
Make a difference to the profession of ophthalmology and patient care by contributing as a College officer or committee member. All roles are supported by colleagues and teams of experienced and specialist senior staff to lead the development of College work across many areas.
We aim to be inclusive in everything we do and encourage equal access to leadership roles to encourage involvement, debate and learning for all our members, and those thinking of a career in ophthalmology.
In roles such as regional representative or regional advisor, members can represent colleagues across the UK. Eligible members can run for President to lead the work of the RCOphth or chair one of the standing committees. We encourage members to share RCOphth work, important news and updates on our social media channels. If you want to talk to one of our existing College officers about roles, visit the ‘Who’s Who’ Council page and contact [email protected]
We also welcome other eye care professionals to be members of the RCOphth and enjoy active participation in the work we do to promote eye health and those working in this sector. Join our diverse community to lead the work of the RCOphth. View the Associate Membership category.
Look at the roles we actively recruit for
Make your data count
We manage the National Ophthalmology Audit Databases (NOD) for both cataracts and age-related macular degeneration. The Cataract NOD Audit enables surgeons to compare their performance against that of their peers nationally and promotes improvements in surgical outcomes for patients that have direct impact on savings for the NHS.
We have launched the age-related macular degeneration treatment audit to prospectively collect, collate and analyse a standardised, nationally agreed dataset from all providers of treatment for the wet or neovascular form of AMD (NvAMD) in the UK, subject to local Caldicott Guardian approvals. The audit aims to provide benchmarks for the standards of care and a powerful quality improvement tool to enhance patient care and outcomes.
NOD is a vital safeguard of patient safety and a promoter of best practice, eradicating variation in the provision of cataract surgery and patient care. Find out how surgeons’ data makes a difference and contributes to the NOD Audit Database.
Contribute to the RCOphth scientific journal, Eye
Eye brings you the latest ophthalmic research, providing high quality articles on the latest global clinical and laboratory based research. It is free to members. We encourage research articles from all those involved in the eye health sector, not just from ophthalmologists. We also recruit for the reviewers to support the editorial board.
Sponsor or donate to support our work
The Royal College of Ophthalmologists is a leader in the eye health sector and puts the patient at the centre of what we do. We welcome interest from organisations and individuals who wish to support our work to prevent avoidable sight loss. Industry already sponsors NOD and we are encouraging more sponsorship of our exclusive programme of seminars and courses.
Download our RCOphth Funding Prospectus
Engage with us on social media
- Follow us on Twitter, and LinkedIn
- Like, comment and share our social media posts and join the conversation about ophthalmology
- Tag us or use #RCOphth and #Ophthalmology in your posts.
Get involved with the College, support our work and contribute to the improvement of ophthalmology services and the clinical expertise of our workforce.