WELCOME TO BIRMINGHAM EYE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

First and foremost, we would like to welcome you to Birmingham Midlands Eye Centre (BMEC) and we hope you will have an enjoyable time working and learning here. The eye emergency department is one of the most challenging yet rewarding experience to yourself and the patients in BMEC. We can see up to 150 or more patients each day and the pathology of conditions is very vast and variable. The department is led by Mr Soon Ch’ng (VR Consultant) with a superb team of nurses led by Ms Laura Young (Ophthalmic Lead Nurse) and Ms Carlene Oliver (Eye ED Manager). We also have a group of very experienced associate specialists, specialty doctors and optometrists that help out in the department. Besides that, medical imaging facilities (OPTOS, Heildeberg and TOPCON), visual function (for B-scan ultrasound, electrodiagnostic test or visual field test) and orthoptists are available to aid in your diagnosis of the patients. As BMEC is the tertiary referral centre for the West Midlands, we have all the subspeciality cover for ophthalmology and advice is available through our friendly consultants or relevant fellows at most times. Finally, this dedicated website was created to help improve the logistics and providing updated information in providing the best care to our patients.

A few house rules to observe during your shift in BMEC Eye Emergency Department are as follows:

1. Please start on time – each shift is 4 hours (Emergency Department [ED]) or 10 patients (Urgent Care Clinic [UCC]).

2. Log on to UNITY and complete FirstNet outcomes for ED patients and PowerChart e-outcomes for UCC patients.

3. Organise follow ups appropriately to avoid unnecessary visits back to ED – local hospital, eye casualty follow-up (CASFU) primary care follow up clinic (PCFU) or Modality Clinics or relevant subspecialities clinic.

4. Print out GP Letters to be sent off and given to patients if repeated medications or important information needs to be conveyed for long-term care of the patients.

5. Try to perform laser treatment in hours (such as asking laser clinics doctors or perform yourself if eye casualty is not too busy). Only arrange out of hours laser treatment after 5pm if the options before is not possible.

6. Please handover over any cases or investigations appropriately by writing in the handover folder (please ask triage nurse where this is) or informing the on-call doctors.

7. Please document on UNITY for any admission to our ward and referrals outside our specialty

The above house rules are covered in more detail in the FAQ section of the website.

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This website is accessible on any computer or devices but will be not searchable on any search engines. Therefore, please remember the name of the website to access it. It is organised to several sections that will be helpful for your shift in the eye emergency department:

• Guidelines and Forms – all the guidelines to manage the common conditions for ophthalmology and relevant referral forms.

• Patients Information Leaflets – approved leaflets from BMEC.

• Subspecialty Services – named consultant to be contacted for advice during specific days.

• Educational Hub – learning materials and educational tools relevant to ophthalmic emergencies.

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We hope you have wonderful time in BMEC and your shift in the eye emergency department. If you have any relevant questions or ideas, please contact (Mr Soon Ch’ng) through the contact form on the front page of the website or his NHS email. Thank you and have a wonderful day!