Resources to help you deliver safe, sustainable and efficient cataract surgery
28 June 2021
In conjunction with the release of our Joint statement: Interim recommendations to discharge patients following routine uncomplicated cataract surgery with The College of Optometrists, we want to highlight RCOphth resources that will help members deliver safe, sustainable, and efficient cataract services.
Cataract surgery is the UK’s most common elective operation, with approximately half a million operations performed each year.1 It is one of the most cost effective, efficient, and successful operations in modern healthcare.2
Understanding the current context
Data analysis published in our 2017 research The Way Forward3 predicted demand for cataract surgery would continue to increase, rising by 25% over the next 10 years, and doubling by 2035. However, our workforce data shows significant, persistent staffing gaps in the hospital ophthalmology and insufficient growth to fill current gaps, let alone support increasing demand.4
- Cataract Services Workforce Guidance March 2021: This guidance aims to support local eye health systems, service leads and commissioners to plan and deliver safe, sustainable, and efficient cataract services to meet current and future demand.
- RCOphth cataract workforce calculator tool Mar2021: Use the ‘workforce calculator’ to support workforce planning by calculating the staff needed to deliver cataract services using community or hospital-based pathways for the patient population.
- Cataract Service during and after COVID-19 pandemic: This article provides an insight into how cataract services have been impacted by COVID-19.
Talks on cataract surgery from Congress 2021
This year’s Congress had a range of sessions that focused on cataract surgery. All sessions will be viewable ‘on demand’ until 26 August 2021.
- Managing risk and patient safety: This session aims to demystify this topic and help people incorporate risk management into day to day professional practice. It starts with an overview of the basics of patient safety, the key risks in ophthalmology and what everyone needs to know to get a handle on dealing with safety issues.
- Optometry & Ophthalmology partnership to meet challenges of 2021 and beyond! Optometrists have been involved in supporting extended role Ophthalmology services for decades both in the primary and secondary care setting. This symposium will provide the attendees with an important update in light of the current Covid-19 pandemic challenges faced by the two professions.
- The road to COVID recovery: in bite sized portions: Learn about prioritising elective capacity, CUES, reducing footfall: Effect of 111 and working collaboratively towards restoration in GM.
- Phacoemulsification Training: A guide to learning, teaching & supervising cataract surgery in theatre: Over a decade worth of knowledge gained from supervising complete beginners, senior Trainees, Trainees with high complication rates and those Trainees deemed simply “untrainable” will be presented.
National Ophthalmology Database (NOD) Audit: cataract surgery
National clinical audits measure and protect patient safety and professional standards. The Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCOphth) runs the National Ophthalmology Database (NOD) Audit which measures the outcomes of Cataract Surgery.
It aims to drive improvement in the quality of care for patients undergoing cataract surgery by identifying variations in access to, and outcomes of cataract surgery. The audit is an important quality assurance measure of the most frequently performed surgical procedure undertaken in the NHS.
References