Red Eye Triage Service and Eye Emergency Treatment In Loughborough

LOUGHBOROUGH, U.K. - Oct. 18, 2014 - PRLog -- Red eyes and eye emergencies can have many causes. It may be a minor eye condition that causes inconvenience and irritation but on other occasions eye problems might be sight-threatening or even life-threatening.  Your GP doesn’t always have the specialist equipment, expertise or time to examine your eyes thoroughly, so they will normally base their opinions on their observations, your symptoms and a breif examination. The same situation occurs at Loughborough Urgent Care Clinic where there is no specialist eye triage walk-in service.

This can result in mis-diagnosis of your eye condition at times which can result delays in the appropriate treatment and may even lead to permanent damage to your eye and eyesight. On other occasions, an unnecessary, stressful and time consuming visit to eye casualty at LRI can result.

Visual Answers Optometrist Mohammed Bhojani is a Primary Eyecare Assessment and Referral Service (PEARS) accredited optometrist and is part of Charnwood Red Eye Scheme. This scheme means that if you have an eye problem and your GP is unsure what to do about it, you can ask them to refer you to Visual Answeers for a free NHS assessment of your eyes and the triaging your eye condition and symptoms for an provisional diagnosis and treatment locally.

Your GP or practice nurse can either phone Visual Answers on (01509) 416800, fax them on (01509) 413887, or email them on barrow@visualanswers.co.uk at our Barrow optometry practice (28 High Street Barrow Upon Soar LE12 8PY) to arrange a priority appointment on your behalf as an eye emergency through the Charnwood Red Eye Scheme.

Your GP surgery must also complete the Charnwood Red Eye referral form that they will already have at their medical centre and you must bring this with you at the time of your appointment. A normal private eye emergency appointment for an advanced diagnostic examination at Visual Answers is charged at £105 to include your examination & triage assessment and will take approx 1 hour. However, when you have this referral made by your GP practice, your appointment will be FREE covered by the NHS and the arrangements already made with Visual Answers who will examine your eyes as clinically necessary and carry out some or all the following diagnostic assessments & examinations (as required):

- A detailed history of the symptoms of your problem(s)
- Asses your visual and refractive performance
- Ophthalmoscopy (use a special torch to look at the back of your eyes)
- Volk lens examination (examine your retina, optic nerve and macula)
- Dilate your pupils (when necessary) to examine your peripheral retina
- Slit lamp examination (examine the front of your eyes with an illuminated microscope)
- Measure your eye pressures
- Take digital retinal photography of your eyes
- Asses your pupil reactions for neurological defects
- Asses your colour vision, eye co-ordination & depth perception
- Carry out a field examination for neurological abnormalities, optic nerve abnormalities or glaucomatous changes
- Carry out a Optomap ultra-wide retinal exam
- Carry out a Zeiss OCT scan to look at the layers below your eye surface and take other scans of the front of your eyes

The Charnwood Red Eye Triage Scheme is applicable for:

- Red eyes
- Allergic reactions to the eyes
- Dry eye symptoms
- Sudden loss of vision
- Contact lens related problems
- Pain in the eyes
- Lumps and bumps around the lids, lashes and eyes
- Symptoms of flashing lights and floaters
- Sudden onset of double vision

The referral scheme is open to all GP’s practices in Charnwood to refer their patients to Visual Answers and other selectively trained and accredited optometrists using the Charnwood red eye referral form.

After examination, Visual Answers will normally provide you provisional diagnosis and provide you recommend treatment(s) where applicable in the form of eye drops or medication or how to manage your condition until it resolves. They may call you back for an additional follow up appointments when necessary. They may also arrange a referral for you to secondary care or may in certain circumstances still refer you directly to LRI eye casualty (A&E) as an emergency so that they will be expecting you and your treatment will start sooner. In all cases Visual Answers will write back to your referring GP and should any additional prescription medication be required, request them to organise this for you too. The Charnwood red eye scheme allows eye emergencies and triage to be dealt with quickly and locally without the need to attend LRI eye casualty for the eye problems above.

For more contact information call accredited optometrists Visual Answers on (Barrow) 01509 416800 or go to the Visual Answers website http://www.visualanswers.co.uk/ or your GP for more information.