Shropshire Star

Hundreds at risk of going blind, charity warns over Shropshire hospitals

A sight loss charity has written to the Health Secretary calling for an urgent investigation into eye services at Shropshire hospitals and highlighting concerns that hundreds of patients are at risk of going blind.

Published

The Macular Society has penned a letter to Matt Hancock amid news of an ongoing independent review into some of the services at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust (SaTH).

However, the review doesn’t currently include the ophthalmology service, which the charity has been extremely concerned about for several years.

Cathy Yelf, chief executive of the Macular Society, has written to, and met with, senior managers at the trust on a number of occasions to raise concerns with the eye service – specifically the clinic for patients with age-related macular degeneration.

She said many clinics around the country are under-resourced, however the society believes the situation in Shrewsbury is a lot worse.

She said: “We believe hundreds of patients will have lost vision unnecessarily as a result of the poor service at this clinic.

"It is a scandal that patients across the country are going blind because many services are under-resourced and under-funded.

“We’re extremely troubled that this situation in Shrewsbury is continuing and that patients are potentially coming to harm. We have expressed our concerns on this issue on a number of occasions.

“It is very distressing for patients to be in a position where they are waiting for treatment, and when they go untreated for many weeks they will suffer irreversible sight loss.”

Earlier this year the charity obtained documents in which senior hospital staff confirmed that there was a ‘significant issue’ in the ophthalmology department causing delays that could lead to ‘irreversible vision loss’ for some patients.

Deteriorating

One problem was that agreement could not be reached on whether the eye department should have its own fridge to store the drugs used to treat patients.

The society has argued the documents chart the attempts to solve the problems from as far back as November 2016. In May 2017, the trust papers showed that 128 patients with deteriorating eyesight waited longer than they should according to national guidelines.

In September 2017 an email noted that the trust was ‘going nowhere fast’ in trying to reform services for patients with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Miss Yelf added: “This situation has horrific consequences for patients.

“Many letters, emails, telephone calls and meetings have failed to bring any resolution to this problem. We hope Mr Hancock takes these concerns seriously and initiates an urgent investigation.”

Nigel Lee, chief operating office at the trust, said there has been a new department installed, and the consultant team is now at full strength.

In April 2019, the service to new referrals also re-opened, and Mr Lee said a number of associations are fully supportive of their work.

He said: "Sath provides a safe ophthalmology service and over the last 18 months we have worked incredibly hard to improve it. We would be delighted to welcome the Macular Society to visit and see for themselves the work that we have done, and that we are continuing to do.

"We are continuing to work with our patients, as well as key partners such as Sight Loss Shropshire and the Guide Dog Association, to further improve our services, and they are fully supportive of the work that we are doing.

“We would welcome colleagues from the Macular Society also playing an integral role in our improvements on behalf of patients.”