Menu

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Ophthalmology Out-of-Hours service for MK

10 January 2025

BLMK (Bedford Luton and Milton Keynes) Integrated Care Board is working to put in place an out-of-hours ophthalmology service for its system by 1st April 2025.

This new service will manage the needs of Milton Keynes residents and full details will be communicated in due course.

Until 31st March 2025, arrangements for urgent booked ophthalmology care are in place and set out below.

 

MKUH Booked Urgent Care Service (BUS) Opening Hours

  • Monday to Thursday: 0800h to 2100h
  • Friday: 0800h to 1700h

Making a BUS Referral

For Optometrists:

  1. Continue to utilise EeRS/ EyeV
  2. The last triage is at 1930h Monday to Thursday, and 15.30h on a Friday.

 

Important Guidance

If the urgent transfer of patients is required between MKUH and Stoke Mandeville, then this must be made by mutual agreement between the referring clinician in BLMK and Stoke Mandeville ophthalmology on call team.

If you wish to make a referral outside of MKUH BUS opening hours, or if you require urgent advice out of these opening hours, please call the Stoke Mandeville switchboard on 01296 315 000 in the first instance and discuss your patient and concerns with the Ophthalmology team on-call.

Stoke Mandeville hospital have an urgent booked ophthalmology clinic (UBOC), and DO NOT provide a walk-in service.

Thank you for your understanding and co-operation.

Claire McGillycuddy

Associate Director of Operations

Surgery Division & Elective Care

Buckinghamshire LOC Latest News

NHS Knowledge and Library Services for Optometry Teams

Resources All optometry teams offering NHS-commissioned services and working directly with NHS patients have access to NHS Knowledge and Library Services, such as ebooks, journals, databases and BMJ Best Practice. These resources include specialist ophthalmology and optometry journals and resources on eye conditions. See BLMK Knowledge & Library Resources to sign up for an NHS OpenAthens account, …

19 February 2025

New Provider for Buckinghamshire Diabetic Eye Screening Programme (DESP)

From 1st April 2025 InHealth are going to be the new provider of the NHS diabetic eye screening service for Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. The current providers (Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust) will continue to be responsible for screening provision until their contract ends. InHealth currently provide …

17 February 2025

BLMK Primary Care Hypertension Conference

BLMK ICB have asked us to circulate the below information for anyone interesting in attending the conference that is taking place on 2nd April.   Join us for a fantastic conference which will bring together community pharmacists, dentists, optometrists, and general practice colleagues across BLMK. The event will be hosted by Dr Vijay Nayar, GP …

17 February 2025

OFNC Statement: Clinical Priority Codes

  NHS England has published new clinical priority codes for use by GOS contractors in England. This is due to an error in the current PCSE system which NHS England commission. This means that some sight tests, which should not require an early retest code, are erroneously requiring a code to be entered to process …

3 February 2025

Cessation of Bucks Ophthalmology Out of Hours cover for MKUK / BLMK

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust (BHT) has asked us to remind practitioners that, effective from 4th November 2024, BHT and specifically Eye Casualty at Stoke Mandeville will no longer accept any urgent or out of hours referrals from Milton Keynes University Hospital (A&E or Urgent Care Services), or any other emergency / out of hours referrals …

6 November 2024

Cataract Post-op Portal

As of June 2024, patients attending for cataract surgery at BHT will be given a printed letter to take their optometrist when attending the post-op refraction appointment. The letter will have their unique PIN code and a link to the secure Medisight Portal. This is to enable BHT to collect post-op visual acuity and refractive …

2 July 2024

AGM 2024 Update

The nominal date and time for our AGM was 8.00 pm on 18th April.  Like last year, no physical meeting was held;  instead, AGM papers were posted on our website and all on our database were given the opportunity to pose questions, nominate committee members and vote for resolutions, online. Three existing committee members, Ahmed …

10 May 2024

Buckinghamshire Community Ophthalmology Service Update

The Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust (BHT) Community Ophthalmology Service has now been running for 6 months, having taken over provision of this service from Operose Health. All patients transferred from Operose to the new BHT Community Ophthalmology Service (COS) who were due an appointment up to now have been offered a face to face appointment. …

9 May 2024

AGM 2024

The 2024 AGM of Buckinghamshire Local Optical Committee will be at 8.00pm on the evening of 18th April. Like last year, we won’t be holding a physical meeting; instead you will have the opportunity to pose questions, nominate and vote for committee members, and vote for the resolutions, online. Papers will be posted on this …

7 April 2024

New general ophthalmic services (GOS) fees for 2024/25

From 1 April 2024, there is new guidance setting out fees for general ophthalmic services, including: ​NHS sight test fee and NHS domiciliary fees NHS optical voucher values continuing education and training payment for 2023, payable in 2024 grant payable to supervisors of pre-registration trainees You can read the guidance here in full. The new fee structure has been updated in …

5 April 2024

LOCSU Latest news

OFNC Responds to the Government’s Second Phase of the Spending Review

OFNC calls for an additional £350m of funding for NHS primary eye care.

19 February 2025

Follow us on social media