Standards & Guidance

Our range of high-quality guidance helps to maintain standards in the planning, practice and commissioning of patient care. Our clinical guidelines provide evidence-based recommendations across all aspect of care or of eye conditions; Concise Practice Points make recommendations for less frequent and targeted clinical situations, succinctly describing the scientific and clinical evidence alongside expert input to enhance clinician and patient decision making. Our Commissioning guidance supports eye units to develop services to meet local population needs.

RCOphth Statement on Ethambutol Toxicity

NHS Improvement has highlighted two recent incidents of severe visual loss due to delayed diagnosis of optic neuropathy from ethambutol. In 2015, 5758 cases of tuberculosis were notified in England and ethambutol is frequently prescribed in its initial phase of treatment.  Although ethambutol optic neuropathy is rare, members are strongly reminded of the possibility of this cause of preventable sight loss and to ensure that current guidance is followed.

Serum Eye Drops for the Treatment of Severe Ocular Surface Disease: Executive Summary

Dry eye disease is a global public-health problem with significant impact on quality of life. Serum Eye Drops (SED) contain many nutritional factors that aid therapeutics. Across the NHS There is variation in practice, inequality of access to SED service and no regulated monitoring outcome. This guideline sets out defined criteria for the use of Serum Eye Drops, monitoring of clinical and patient-reported outcomes to improve patient morbidity and standards of care.

Serum Eye Drops for the Treatment of Severe Ocular Surface Disease: Lay Summary

Dry eye disease is a global public-health problem with significant impact on quality of life. Serum Eye Drops (SED) contain many nutritional factors that aid therapeutics. Across the NHS There is variation in practice, inequality of access to SED service and no regulated monitoring outcome. This guideline sets out defined criteria for the use of Serum Eye Drops, monitoring of clinical and patient-reported outcomes to improve patient morbidity and standards of care.

Serum Eye Drops for the Treatment of Severe Ocular Surface Disease: Guideline

Dry eye disease is a global public-health problem with significant impact on quality of life. Serum Eye Drops (SED) contain many nutritional factors that aid therapeutics. Across the NHS There is variation in practice, inequality of access to SED service and no regulated monitoring outcome. This guideline sets out defined criteria for the use of Serum Eye Drops, monitoring of clinical and patient-reported outcomes to improve patient morbidity and standards of care.

The Way Forward

The increasing demand for hospital eye services (HES) is not being met and continues to grow – currently seeing nearly 10% of all outpatient appointments and performing 6% of the surgery in the UK. The Way Forward was commissioned by The Royal College of Ophthalmologists to identify current methods of working and schemes devised by ophthalmology departments in the UK to help meet the increasing demand in ophthalmic services. The information aims to offer a helpful resource for ophthalmologists who are seeking to develop their services to meet capacity needs.