Specsavers will from next week provide treatments for wet AMD patients in Wales through an NHS collaboration.
The ‘Austin Friars Eye Treatment Centre’ will treat AMD patients throughout Gwent, Wales from Specsavers’ Newport practice – in a bid to reduce waiting times for assessment, diagnosis and treatment.
It was the first time a high street practice has provided initial screening and referrals, and NHS staff have delivered treatments from the same high street location, a statement said.
Gwent residents with Wet AMD will be treated at the Austin Friars Eye Treatment Centre from September 5. From next month the centre will also provide assessments for patients.
Chris Blyth, clinical director and consultant ophthalmologist at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, said: ‘The purpose-built facility provides much needed additional capacity and will reduce congestion in the main eye clinic at the Royal Gwent Hospital. As a result, we expect waiting times and the number of delayed follow-up appointments to reduce.
‘It will greatly improve the quality of service we can offer to people with some of the most common sight-threatening eye diseases in Gwent.’
Currently around 20 people a week who are suspected to have wet AMD are referred to the health board. One thousand are treated for macular degeneration every year.
The new service was expected create an additional 1,600 appointments a year and see Specsavers’ optometrists provide an initial screening service before results were reviewed virtually by a hospital-based ophthalmologist to speed up the process of diagnosis and referral for treatment.
Specsavers co-founder and optometrist Doug Perkins added: ‘This is exactly the kind of enhanced optical service that we should seek to be involved in as optometrists, using our skills to the benefit of patients and helping to ease the pressure on the hospital service.’