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. 2020 Jul;34(7):1189-1192.
doi: 10.1038/s41433-020-0957-2. Epub 2020 May 13.

The impact of COVID policies on acute ophthalmology services-experiences from Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Louisa Wickham  1 , Gordon Hay  2 , Robin Hamilton  2 , Jack Wooding  2 , Harry Tossounis  2 , Lyndon da Cruz  2 , Dilani Siriwardena  2 , Nick Strouthidis  2
Affiliations

The impact of COVID policies on acute ophthalmology services-experiences from Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Louisa Wickham et al. Eye (Lond). 2020 Jul.
No abstract available

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. A bar chart demonstrating the number of Attend Anywhere consultations per day following its active implementation in week commencing March 23rd, 2020.
The number of consultations increased dramatically following introduction of isolations measures and the use of active triage at the entrance to the department encouraging its use. The Number of Attend Anywhere consultations following its active implementation in week commencing March 23rd, 2020.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Bar chart showing the number of injections performed across Moorfields Eye Hospital Trust showing the impact on isolation measures on attendance and first injection rates.
Following introduction of isolation measures the number of injections performed in April fell significantly for both follow up and new patients.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. A bar chart showing the number of new AMD cases presenting by week (grey) starting the first week in March 2020 compared with presentation rates in 2019 (orange) and 2018 (blue) for the same week.
Week 4 represents the week commencing March 23rd when the Trust mobilised to restrict services to emergency care only, the speed of onset of these measures meant that many patients were not contactable prior to their planned appointment. Despite this numbers still fell significantly as compared to previous years due to high DNA rates. Subsequent weeks show further decreases in patient numbers and represent those with active disease or patients undergoing treatment in their only seeing eye.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. A bar chart showing the number of patients presenting to VRE in March/April 2019 (blue) and 2020 (orange).
The number of patients presenting with retinal detachment fell an average of 62% compared with same period in 2019.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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References

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