The Operating Theatre Journal - Journal - Page 18
Eye Centre celebrates fifth birthday milestone
The Northern General Eye Centre is celebrating its fifth year of operation - having performed over 15,600 cataract operations
since first opening on 21 May 2018
• Northern General Eye Centre celebrates fifth
birthday milestone.
• The £6.7m centre opened its doors to
patients on 21 May 2018, and has performed
over 15,600 cataract operations since.
• The facility has played a leading role in
helping to provide NHS cataract surgery, with
staff now trained to support the glaucoma
and medical retina service.
Staff at the Northern General Eye Centre have
held a special celebration event to mark the
Centre’s fifth birthday milestone.
The £6.7m centre, which officially opened its
doors to patients on 21 May 2018, has played a
pivotal role in helping to provide leading NHS
cataract surgery in a dedicated, state-of-theart facility.
Since it opened the Centre has performed over
15,600 operations to remove cataracts, which
are estimated to affect 30% of people aged
65 and over. If untreated, cataracts cause
significant disruption to everyday life, making
it difficult to drive or watch TV, and eventually
lead to blindness.
Staff from the centre, including specialist
ophthalmic surgeons, hospital optometrists,
ophthalmic science practitioners, nurses,
training nursing associates, clinical support
workers and administrative staff celebrated
with balloons and special commemorative
speeches, recognising the achievements
and efforts of the team over the years. This
included the facility’s role in supporting the
Covid-19 pandemic and its role in delivering
personalised, patient centred care by ensuring
patients have all their diagnostic and preoperative assessments completed in one
visit, saving unnecessary repeat trips prior to
surgery.
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Over the years, clinical staff numbers have
grown as has support from other staff groups
including administration, optometrists and
ophthalmic science practitioners, with more
complex cases being taken on as clinics
and theatres have increased and training
developed. Following the Covid-19 pandemic,
the staff have also been trained to support the
glaucoma and medical retina service.
Sally-Ann Wilkes, 54, who lives in Deepcar,
Stocksbridge, and suffers with functional
movement disorder seizures, has had
numerous eye appointments due to her
diabetes, something she used to dread as it
normally involves visits to lots of different
rooms and she is reliant on a walking frame
to get around.
“The Northern General Eye Centre is lovely and
spacious. They made it such an easy day for
me, having that amount of seizures, it drains
the energy out of you, but the nurses helped
me 200% and eight months after surgery I can
see as if looking through glass, everything is so
clear and white.”
THE OPERATING THEATRE JOURNAL
Catherine Clay, Matron for the Northern
General Eye Centre, said:
“We are delighted to be celebrating the
Centre’s milestone fifth birthday. Over the
past five years, we have seen it develop and
flourish in many ways, and many staff have
developed new roles in the department from
learning how to be an assessment nurse to
scrubbing and learning how to circulate for
theatres procedures. We also underwent big
changes through Covid with the introduction
of glaucoma surgery which we still continue
to support and staff learnt additional skills to
support the medical retina injection service. I
feel proud and very lucky to still be a part of
this amazing team.”
The team paid special tribute to Mr Lee
Bower, who was instrumental in the early
developments of the Centre and originally
managed its operations until he sadly passed
in 2020, and Mark Stone, who supported the
team’s educational programme, and sadly
passed in 2019.
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