Standards & Guidance

Advisory Appointment Committees, or AACs, are recruitment panels used when hiring consultants and specialty doctors in Trusts across the UK. The College works with Trusts and other NHS bodies to approve job descriptions and send a volunteer College adviser to provide College guidance on the suitability of the applicants for appointment. Here you can find information about becoming an AAC representative and what Trusts need to provide to the College for recruitment.

It is never easy to tell someone that we cannot offer a treatment for their sight loss, or to offer them registration. However, there are many simple strategies that can be incorporated into the way the ophthalmologist practices – even during the busiest clinic– that will ensure the people we encounter experience a smoother journey into accepting their low vision and living with it.

It is never easy to tell someone that treatment cannot be offered for their sight loss, or to offer them registration. However, there are many simple strategies that can be incorporated into the way the ophthalmologist practices – even during the busiest clinic– that will ensure the people encountered in clinic experience a smoother journey into accepting their low vision and living with it.

This guidance is intended for use by commissioners, providers, social care, and users of the AMD services, including their families and carers. The guidance sets out the principles and recommended minimum standards of care for AMD to decrease variations of care across AMD services in England and Wales. This is based on best practice, the latest available evidence and is in line with published NICE guidance including NG 82 and associated Technology Appraisals

The executive summary for the College's AMD commissioning guidance.

Both the range and sophistication of ophthalmic imaging technologies have increased rapidly in recent years. This document provides an overview of the current state of commercially available ophthalmic imaging technologies and their clinical applications as things stand at the time of publication and readers should note this is a rapidly changing field.

This document represents the expert consensus, based on available evidence and national guidance, of the Paediatric Sub-committee of The Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCOphth) regarding best practice and fundamental standards for children’s ophthalmic services.

The workforce calculator tool has been designed to predict the staffing requirements for different patient pathways to serve the local population needs. It provides detail on number of surgical lists, and the total annual and weekly ophthalmologist sessions needed, taking into account the primary eye care workforce.

Ophthalmology accounts for around 6% of all NHS procedures, with 700,000 elective admissions per year of which 400,000 are cataracts and over 95% are day cases in England. This document will concentrate on the facilities and equipment for provision of ophthalmic major surgery but will touch on requirements for minor operation (see also RCOphth Standards for intravitreal injections).