Emergency Referrals
For emergency referrals requiring immediate action, please refer the patient directly to the Urgent Eye Clinic, based at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.
In the first instance, telephone the clinic on 01743 261476 and a member of the clinical team will advise on appropriate action. In most cases you will be asked to give the patient a covering letter to take to their appointment at the Hospital
The Urgent Eye Clinic is open on Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, Saturday 9am to 12 noon, and Sunday 10am to 12 noon.
Out of hours, you are advised to phone the main switchboard 01743 261000 and ask to speak to the on-call Ophthalmologist. If this is not possible, send the patient to A&E with a covering letter.
Please remember to send a copy of the referral to the patient’s GP, marked clearly ‘for your information’, to avoid confusion.
Fast-Track WET AMD referrals
Optometrists should e-mail WET AMD referrals to sath.wamd@nhs.net. The e-mail account is monitored on a daily basis and referrers will get an automated response advising that the referral has been received. This e-mail account is not for routine or other urgent referrals.
Advice and Guidance Service for Optometrists
A new advice and guidance ( A&G) service for Optometrists was launched in June 2020. The service enables Optometrists to communicate directly with consultant ophthalmologists at SaTH to request advice and guidance about specific patients.
A dedicated e-mail address has been created for this service:
sath.ophthalmologyag@nhs.net
Please note A&G requests containing patient identifiable data should be sent securely via NHS net e-mail accounts.
This service is NOT a replacement for the Urgent Eye Clinic telephone triage for any urgent queries regarding patient treatments.
Diabetic Screening
All patients diagnosed with Diabetes should be registered to attend the Diabetes Eye Screening Programme. If a patient refuses to be part of the national eye screening programme, they may choose to be examined privately by an optometrist of their own choosing.
GOS Regs state that diabetic eye screening is not considered to be part of a GOS Sight Test. GOS recalls for diabetic pxs have recently been clarified in the College of Optometrists Guidelines for Professional Conduct. Automatic annual GOS review is no longer considered appropriate, and payment may be contested following an NHS audit.
Please contact the Hummingbird Centre if you have any questions regarding attendance or any clinical concerns.
Shropshire Diabetes Eye Screening Programme
Hummingbird Centre,
Royal Shrewsbury Hospital
Shropshire
SY3 8XQ
Telephone: 01743 261257
Before referring any diabetic patient back into the HES medical retina clinic, please ring the Hummingbird Centre to discuss your findings.
After performing a GOS sight test on a diabetic patient, it is no longer mandatory to inform the GP of your findings. The examining optometrist does have a duty to ensure that the patient is under a DESP (Diabetic Eye Screening Programme) and to establish when the last screening took place.