News

Next Committee Meeting

The next meeting of the Hertfordshire LOC will be on Monday 7th October 2019, at a venue to be confirmed. Usually starting at 6.30pm, this will be confirmed nearer the time.

CET Event Monday 18th November 2019 at the BioPark, Welwyn Garden City.

The next CET event will be on Monday 18th November 2019 at the BioPark in Welwyn Garden City, starting at 6.30. Invitiations to follow to everyone on the Hertfordshire LOC mailing list.

If you would like to be added to this list, would like to attend a committee meeting, or have any enquiries about the LOC, please contact the administrator for more details: [email protected]

Herts Valley Community Opthalmology Service (CHEC)- IMPORTANT

You may have received a letter recently from the CCG about this new service, following an introduction evening on 30th November.

The letter states that all non urgent referrals now need to go through the CHEC portal and should not go to the GP.

Please be assured that there is NO legal requirement to send your referrals this way- you are entitled to continue to send your GOS 18s to your GP as stated in our NHS contracts if you wish. If any referrals are sent back to you from the GP, please let me know as we will need to take it up with them.

You should continue to send emergency/ urgent and 2week appointments in your usual way.

If you have an arrangement with your local hospital for direct cataract referral (eg, Moorfields, L&D), you should continue to refer directly to them and not involve CHEC.

I hope this makes sense and I am sorry that you are receiving conflicting advice. We are meeting with the CCG and the new provider (CHEC) at the end of the week so will try to resolve these issues. We are also looking to talk to them about the excessive mandatory training so will come back with any progress.

Kind regards,

Wendy

Herts LOC chair

Glaucoma Referral Refinement Scheme meeting and AGM 2017 - 6pm Monday 27th March 2017 - Lecture Theatre, Biopark, Broadwater Road, Welwyn Garden City, AL7 3AX. Please see message below from Wendy d'E Vallancey (Chair)

We are writing to announce that despite a lot of work and preparation by your LOC to bid for the Glaucoma Referral Refinement Scheme commissioned by East and North Herts CCG, the contract has been awarded to Community Health and Eye Care. This is the first service for which we have formulated a bid and although disappointed, we are delighted that CHEC is looking to use local Optometrists to provide this service and are keen to engage with us.
CHEC has booked the Biopark, Welwyn for an introductory meeting on 27th March 2017 from 6pm onwards and I would encourage all practices with patients in the East and North Herts region to attend. I attach the letter from the Optometry Lead below, whom you can contact to confirm your attendance.
We will hold our LOC AGM straight after this meeting so please stay and meet your LOC and have your say in what you would like to see happening in your area- we would be delighted to have your input.

Newsletter

The February 2017 Newsletter has just been published and can be found here.

Referrals

A new Wet AMD Referral form has been uploaded and can be found here. The referral contact sheet can be found using this link, however is in the process of being updated. Going forward this information can be found in the practitioner Information section on the website.

Non Tolerance Guidance

Please see updated guidance from the Optical Confederation regarding changes to traditional thinking on some aspects of handling non-tolerance. Please click here.