Supporting the development of future eye services

Over 2 million people are living with sight loss in the UK, 34,000 of these are living in North Central London. Over the next 16 years, this is set to increase by 50% due to an ageing and growing population. In North Central London, this growth is equivalent to serving the current demand in Birmingham.

To meet this challenge, there is a proposal to move Moorfield’s City Road services to a new facility at King’s Cross. To support the decision making around this and future eye services more broadly, Edge was asked to provide an understanding of future activity growth and how this would change with new pathways and treatments.

Edge worked extensively with system leaders and experts, conducting over 40 expert interviews and holding workshops with over 90 attendees, to build a thorough understanding of expected changes to pathways. This complemented work that was done locally that had started to develop, approve and test new pathways, such as the use of a digital platform to improve referrals by allowing information exchange between optometrists and hospital ophthalmologists.

Harnessing the collected insight with patient-level data, Edge modelled future activity. This included using simulation and sensitivity modelling to provide a robust understanding of expected epidemiological and condition-specific pathway changes by CCG, which will feed into compliant business cases. The strength of evidence also helped support alignment and joint working between Moorfields, CCGs, Specialised Commissioning and the optometry community that continues to develop.

Finally, to ensure the longevity of the work and development of local plans, Edge developed the “Ophthalmology Activity App”. This allows system leaders to craft and explore new scenarios and their impact on ophthalmology activity across key conditions.

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Contact us to learn more about our clinical and demand modelling work:

George Batchelor

[email protected]