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Eye Clinic-Deteriorating service continues to...

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"Eye Clinic-Deteriorating service continues to..."

About: North Middlesex Hospital / Ophthalmology

Your eyesight is important right, especially if you are diabetic like me but if you are the eye clinic at this hospital they do everything they can not to provide a duty of care. On 9th January 2019, I had laser treatment to both eyes; this work is supposed to be checked within a maximum of three months of treatment, strange then that my next appointment was made for 28th May. On May 10th at my local optician, the digital photography to the back of my eye revealed more bleeding and eruptions which I had confidence would be dealt with by the appointment at the eye clinic on 28th May. Not so, because on 23rd May at 10-45am the eye clinic cancelled my appointment. Another appointment at bank holiday time cancelled and not for the first time; I have complained about this developing pattern over the past eighteen months to two years and there is no improvement. To make matters worse there was a call on 25th May from the eye clinic at 4-00pm but they left no message on the answerphone despite the fact that NMH came up on my screen but no number was generated. As stated in a letter of complaint to the eye clinic, this department is now poorly managed, unreliable and undermining duty of care to me and other patients. It has finally reached rock bottom and no one has done anything to stop it.

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Responses

Response from North Middlesex Hospital 4 years ago
North Middlesex Hospital

Submitted on 11/06/2019 at 11:08
Published on nhs.uk at 12:06

Dear Mr Waterhouse

Thank you for taking the time to provide the feedback below for the attention of the ophthalmology department at the NMUH.

In the first instance, please accept my sincere apologies for the inconveniences this issue may have caused.

I have had the opportunity to review your episode of care and can confirm that following the laser procedure on the 9th January 2019, a follow up appointment was requested for you to be seen back in clinic in approximately 4months.

The appointment was scheduled to take place on the 28th May 2019, however on the 22nd May 2019; it was cancelled and rescheduled to the 25th June 2019.

The cancellation was due to the short notice withdrawal of the doctor who was due to cover the clinic while the recruitment process is taking place due to a vacancy.

As a result of the short notice notification of the withdrawal, it was not possible to find an alternative Doctor at such short notice.

In addition to having your records reviewed to assess any potential harm due to the in-adverted delays with your follow up appointment, the Service Manager contacted you on Friday 7th June to offer you an earlier appointment, on Monday 10th June; however understandably this was too short a notice for you to attend. The clinical review by the doctor indicates that following the focal macular argon laser treatment on the 9th January 2019, you should normally be seen after this type of laser treatment four months later as this is the time where the argon laser can have a full effect on the leakage areas. There are three clinical outcome possibilities after the focal macular argon laser; first clinical outcome possibility is the diabetic macular oedema is resolved completely which is a very good outcome of the treatment and then you would be followed up routinely in the medical retina clinic. Second clinical outcome is a partial response to the laser treatment and hence another attempt of laser treatment or close observation would be the options depending on the amount and place of the oedema plus the visual acuity.

The third outcome would be the diabetic macular oedema gets worse which either requires another type of intervention like a course of intravitreal injections of anti-VEGF treatment or maybe another session of focal argon laser if the oedema is less than 400 microns in size.

Therefore, a four month appointment following the focal macular laser treatment is essential to determine the next step for your care. I understand that another appointment can be offered to you on Saturday, 15th June 2019 if it suits you.

Please contact the service on 0208 887 2267 to confirm if you are able to attend and agree a suitable time.

Once again, I offer my sincere apologies for any inconvenience or concerns the cancellation may have caused you.

The ophthalmology department aims to provide the best quality care to their patients and this cancellation was unfortunately outside of its control.

Please do let us know if you have any further enquiries?

Kind regards

Tracey Yesin

Service Manager – Ophthalmology

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