Posted on: 7 October 2019
One of the key aims for the Partnership’s Improving Planned Care Programme is to transform eye care services across West Yorkshire and Harrogate so that all patients receive the same high standards of care when they need it and in the most appropriate place.
Essential to achieving that aim is an adequately skilled optometry workforce that is able to manage people with increasingly complex sight loss conditions in more community settings that are easier for eye care patients to access.
With that aim in mind, the Partnership is delighted to announce that West Yorkshire and Harrogate has been awarded £55,000 worth of funding which has been made available by Health Education England (HEE) through its workforce development fund. HEE invited healthcare organisations to bid for a portion of the funding by explaining how they would use the money to develop their workforce in 2019/20.
The money for our region will give local community and hospital-based optometrists the opportunity to undertake the ‘Professional Certificate in Medical Retina and Independent Prescriber’ training at the University of Bradford’s school of Optometry and Vision Science.
Optometrists completing this training will gain knowledge of common medical retina conditions - including diabetic eye disease, macular degeneration and retinal detachment. This knowledge, along with training around eye imaging and screening, will support those optometrists in making accurate and appropriate referrals onto specialist eye care services for patients with such conditions.
The Independent Prescriber aspect of the qualification will focus on current treatments of medical retina disorders and the certification means that qualified optometrists will be able to prescribe appropriate medication for any medical retina conditions they identify.
Stephen Clark, Chair of the Partnership’s Eye Health Network said:
“This is great news for eye care services in West Yorkshire and Harrogate. We knew that our chances of receiving funding to upskill our workforce were slim, as HEE had £2.7m worth of bids for £600k of funding, so the £55,000 we’ve been awarded is very welcome and much appreciated. The funding will pay for around 73 optometrists to receive the training which is expected to start from January 2020.”
Once they have successfully completed the course, our newly qualified optometrists will be able to undertake supervised roles in our local medical retina clinics - providing a real boost to eye care services across West Yorkshire and Harrogate.