PES Working With ICBs To Promote Community Urgent Eye Care Services (CUES)

21 April 2023

NHS Greater Manchester’s Get To Know Where To Go (GTKWTG) campaign is all about helping people decide who to approach for what when they need medical advice, help or treatment. The campaign has been promoting different aspects of the health service in turn – and the spotlight is now falling on advising patients on the services being delivered in optometry practices, namely the Community Urgent Eye Service (CUES).

The service in Greater Manchester has seen and treated over 100,000 patients since its launch.

To support their new publicity drive to encourage patients to access the most appropriate care setting, the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board (ICB) working with PES and the Local Optical Committees has produced two short films advising patients on how to access CUES, highlighting the need to be registered with a local GP.

The animation about the service will be used in GP, pharmacy and A&E waiting areas and explains how patients can access the service.

The new films are available on YouTube here and here.

Additionally, a social media campaign (#GTKWTG) is underway highlighting the Greater Manchester Community Urgent Eyecare Service. This is supported by a dedicated GM CUES web resource on the PES website for patients which can be found here.

PES is working in other areas with minor and urgent eye care services to develop an extension of this across other areas. This will see local service branded web pages, associated videos and social media resources.

We look forward to making these available through local communication channels and via the PES website – all with the aim of raising awareness of patients to #Think Optometry when they have an eye related problem – and thus attend the appropriate eyecare service.