Electronic Eye Care Referral Service to Launch Across the Northwest region
14 February 2022
Primary Eyecare services (PES) is working with NHS Integrated Care Systems across the northwest to implement the OPERA Eyecare Electronic Referral Service (EeRS).
The system – which is being rolled out across Greater Manchester, Cheshire & Merseyside, and Lancashire & South Cumbria – will support patient care and improve access to targeted eye care.
Implementation of EeRS (referred to as EYcare in Cheshire & Merseyside), will improve the safety and efficiency of referrals, reduce the number of emails and faxes being sent and received between Practices and Trusts, and take a step towards the aspiration of a fully integrated approach to eyecare provision across primary and secondary care with the Northwest.
This builds on our existing EeRS implementation in Mid and South Essex and our existing work in Greater Manchester, East Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen.
Referrals into secondary care will be transferred electronically via the OPERA IT platform with the attachment of images and additional documents (where available and relevant to referral).
Dharmesh Patel, PES CEO said:
“We are delighted to be working with the northwest NHS integrated care systems alongside our IT partner – FDS, to support the transformation in the way we make referrals across our network of practices and hospital eye services. Opera is an easy-to-use platform, and we look forward to developing the platform further with user feedback.”
PES with its IT partner FDS will be launching the system via the OPERA platform over the coming weeks and months.
PES and NHS leads will be engaging with the Local Optical Committees across the region to help support them to ensure optical practices have everything they need to enable them to engage fully in this service.