Virtual clinics for glaucoma care in the UK: Qualitative evaluation

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Virtual clinics for glaucoma care in the UK – National survey and patients’ and clinicians’ experiences and perceptions: a qualitative evaluation

• IRAS ID

  188595

• Contact name

  Robert Harper

• Contact email

  robert.harper@cmft.nhs.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 6 months, 0 days

• Research summary

  Glaucoma is a chronic, potentially blinding eye disease requiring lifelong monitoring. The increasing prevalence of the disease has resulted in a corresponding need to increase clinic capacity to avoid unacceptable delays in appointments and maintain quality standards of care. ‘Virtual’ clinics have been implemented by a number of NHS Trusts as part of the solution. These clinics usually take the form of data collection by technicians and/or non-specialist health professionals in a hospital, community or mobile setting, with subsequent expert clinician data review and decision making being made ‘virtually’, i.e. without the patient being there.
  Very little is known about patient and clinician experiences and perceptions of virtual glaucoma clinics and an informed debate, involving patients and healthcare professionals, is urgently needed if such a model of care is to be universally accepted and implemented, otherwise alternative solutions will need to be found.
  Two virtual clinic models in different parts of the UK have already been identified and will be used to recruit patients and healthcare professionals for interview. These are hospital ophthalmology departments which we feel will provide a representative case mix of patients and ensuring that the views of clinicians, who are both proponents and non-proponents of virtual clinics, are considered. Interviews will be single events conducted on an individual basis (face to face or over the phone) and all personal identifying features will be anonymised. It is expected that the interviews will take place over the course of 6 months and the information obtained should help to shape the future direction of glaucoma monitoring. The study is supported by a grant from the International Glaucoma Association.

• REC name

  East of England - Cambridge Central Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  17/EE/0406

• Date of REC Opinion

  6 Oct 2017

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion