Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: Understanding the impact of “hand‐holding volunteers” providing theatre support during surgery ‐ The patient perspective
News from our founding member: Moorfields Eye Hospital
The majority of cataract, and some glaucoma eye surgeries is undertaken using local anaesthetic and can be uncomfortable for patients and make them feel anxious. This can be very unpleasant and cause anxiety in patients. Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust uses volunteers in a “hand‐holding” role to provide comfort and support to patients undergoing operations. This role was introduced in 2019 and by 2020 there were twelve trained volunteers working for the trust. Due to the Covid‐19 pandemic most of these volunteers stood down from the role, but there has consistently been at least two volunteers providing “hand‐holding” support since the role was introduced. The variation in the number of available volunteers over time has meant that it hasn’t always been possible to provide those who request it with volunteer support. Where volunteer availability is low, access is determined by whether, or not, an operation takes place in a theatre where a volunteer has been placed. To help evaluate this volunteer intervention data collection was introduced during the Volunteering Innovators Programme (VIP) 1 and has continued ever since. This paper includes analysis of patient survey data collected up to June 2021.
Want to know more about what patients think about the hand-holding service? Read more