Community Glaucoma and Ocular Hypertension (OHT) Service

Description

East and North Hertfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is committed to improving local eye healthcare services across the East and North Hertfordshire area in line with its strategic ambitions that are included in the CCG's 5-year Operational Plan to support/deliver against the NHS Constitution and the NHS Five Year Forward View. As part of this commitment, the CCG believe that specific eye conditions can be appropriately treated in a community setting, improving the accessibility of services to patients for these conditions and thereby reducing pressure on hospital eye care providers by ensuring that only those patients that meet the referral pathway criteria for hospital eye care are referred to these services. As such East and North Hertfordshire CCG commissioned a single Prime Provider offering Community Glaucoma and OHT services to suit the needs of the local population and integrated with hospital eye care providers to ensure seamless pathways of care. The Community Glaucoma and OHT Service is concerned with the implementation of a diagnosis and management pathway for glaucoma and ocular hypertension patients who have been identified in the course of a standard eye examination. It does not propose any initial changes to the current arrangements for management and treatment of patients that have been diagnosed and are being treated in secondary care. The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) estimate that in 2015 5,400 people in East and North Hertfordshire were living with Glaucoma. This is expected to rise to 5,680 by 2020. In addition, the Prime Provider will be expected to develop and enhance the skills of the current primary care base eye healthcare specialists, to ensure that they are able to offer an increasing range of services in primary care. The Prime Provider will ensure that robust sub-contracts are in place with local provider optometrists /GPs/any other Healthcare providers to underpin the service provided. The contract duration term is 36 months plus an option to extend for an additional 24 months (maximum of a 5 year contract). Community Monitoring - Referrals into the service for community monitoring may in the future come from acute ophthalmology departments from hospital eye services. There is no guarantee of any activity for this service (monitoring of OHT) and before the service could commence the Prime Provider will need to demonstrate that they have successfully delivered the Patient Pathway and agreed clear pathways and governance with participatory acute trusts.