Launch of the new Eye Care Hub website

 The National Eye Care Recovery and Transformation Programme (NECRTP) brings together teams across NHS England and NHS Improvement, NHSX and NHS Digital to support delivery of whole pathway improvement and transformation of eye care for patients. 

We aim to: 

• Support the immediate, rapid recovery of eye care services 
• Prevent unnecessary, irreversible sight loss and improve access to care for all driven by clinical need 
• Avoid unnecessary face to face outpatient attendances 
• Embed new ways of working and enable ongoing local transformation of eye care services across primary, secondary and community care 
• Increase surgical efficiency to reduce long waits for eye operations 

Our most important measure of success is to prevent people losing their sight while on a waiting list or due to delayed follow up care. 

We are pleased to launch our new website, the Eye Care Hub, on NHS Futures. This is an eyecare-specific site which contains a comprehensive set of information, guidance, and a wide range of materials to support systems, providers, and professionals in implementing the NHS England recovery guidance on improving eye care services. It contains simple to use guidance, step by step advice and numerous case studies and example materials such as protocols, patient leaflets, competencies and more, which will help the eye care world improve their services more rapidly. It provides information on learning events past and future and allows discussion forums to join up those delivering or overseeing eyecare across England for mutual support and learning. 

We would like to thank those who are already active members and the many colleagues who have provided feedback, added information, and shared documents. We now want you all to have access and, as stakeholders in our Eye Care Best Practice community, you are receiving this invitation to continue to play an active part in improving care by joining the Eye Care Hub – FutureNHS Collaboration Platform. We would like you not only to join, but to pass on to your members, stakeholders, colleagues, and teams this invitation and encourage them to join. 

We believe everyone involved in eye care needs to be part of this collaboration and to join the hub to understand the urgent need to transform – and to discover how they can contribute to this in their practice or daily work. 

If you have feedback on the hub, or information and resources that you wish to share to the wider eye care world, please send through to nhsi.eyecare-transformation@nhs.net. If you have questions, you are looking for support from the national team or you would like to contact your peers in other systems and regions, please contact us.