Community Management of Acute Eye Disease.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Community Management of Acute Eye Disease.
IRAS ID
208818
Contact name
Ashleigh Kernohan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Glasgow Caledonian University
Duration of Study in the UK
years, 11 months, days
Research summary
In 2009 the Grampian Health Board, in North East Scotland, founded a scheme known as Local Enhanced Services (LES). This is a partnership between local general practitioners, ophthalmologists and optometrists which aims to ease the burden of acute patients attending the hospital eye department. The community based local enhanced services (LES) scheme specifies four acute conditions which are traditionally managed in a hospital setting and arranges for a partnership between General Practitioners and optometrists to manage these conditions in the community. The eye conditions which have been specified by LES as extended service provision for community optometrists include: corneal foreign body and three inflammatory eye conditions: acute anterior uveitis, herpes simplex keratitis and marginal keratitis.
Our aim is to compare the benefits of hospital versus community referral pathways of acute eye care; specifically the four conditions listed above. When a patient attends their optometrist with an acute eye problem, they will be given a short questionnaire to complete regarding the severity of their symptoms before being clinically examined by their optometrist. The optometrist will provide a provisional diagnosis of the problem and details about whether the patient was referred or not. The researcher will follow up the patient via phone or email and issue a follow up questionnaire 4 weeks later to assess for resolution of the presenting symptoms. This will take place in two health boards, NHS Grampian and NHS Tayside. We wish to investigate whether there is any difference in the self reported symptoms of an eye condition managed by a community optometrist as opposed to a hospital based ophthalmologist.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/YH/0484
Date of REC Opinion
14 Nov 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion