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Revolutionising eyecare across London

Around 200,000 people in London are blind or partially sighted.

Ophthalmology is under growing pressure as the busiest outpatient service, with rising demand and long waits.

Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has developed a new, tech-enabled eyecare pathway to improve care across London. It includes virtual consultations, a single point of access for referrals and diagnostic monitoring hubs.

Together, these changes make care faster, more efficient and focused on patients’ needs.

UCLPartners’ work has strengthened the evidence of the efficacy of our single point of access pathway and will enable us to better understand its impact for the future and potential expansion into other areas; maintaining our position Moorfields as a global leader in eye care.

Peter Thomas, Director of Digital Development and Chief Clinical Information Officer, Moorfields Eye Hospital

As Moorfields’ innovation partner, we are evaluating the pathway’s impact to further strengthen the model, potentially allowing it to scale to other pathways and NHS trusts. We found the single point of access can cut referral-to-assessment time from 11 days to just two hours. It also reclassifies 58% of urgent referrals as routine, easing pressure on the system.

Based on the pathway design, we built a model to help Moorfields plan for demand, staffing and cost. Our evaluation shows that 60% potential savings in the cost of initial diagnosis and treatment are projected through the Moorfields eye care pathway model.

60%
potential savings
are projected through the Moorfields eye care pathway model