Provision of Commissioned Services
Dear All,
As part of our ongoing clinical governance and service monitoring responsibilities, we would like to remind all participating practices of the requirements associated with the North East London community pathways.
Provision of Commissioned Services
Practices accredited to provide community ophthalmology services are expected to make all commissioned pathways available to eligible patients. This includes:
- Minor Eye Conditions Service (MECS)
- Cataract Refinement Service
- Glaucoma Repeat Measures / Filtering Service
Practices should not selectively provide individual services whilst opting out of others unless this has been formally agreed with the commissioner. The success of the programme depends on patients having access to the full range of commissioned services across the network.
Cataract Refinement Pathway – Dilation Requirements
We would also like to remind practices that pupil dilation forms a core component of the Cataract Refinement pathway and should be undertaken routinely as part of the assessment.
We recognise that there may occasionally be legitimate clinical or patient-specific reasons why dilation cannot be performed. However, these situations should be the exception rather than the norm.
Where dilation is not undertaken, the reason should be clearly documented within the patient record.
Clinical Governance
As part of routine governance and audit activity, we continue to review pathway utilisation and compliance with service specifications. We will be undertaking further reviews of activity across all pathways over the coming months and may contact practices where unusual activity patterns are identified to better understand local processes and support service delivery.
We are also planning future training sessions focused on the cataract and glaucoma pathways to support practices and ensure consistent delivery of commissioned services.
If you have any questions regarding pathway requirements or service specifications, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind regards,
North East London Community Eyecare