UK hospital emergency ophthalmology services (HEOS) are provided locally by individual Trusts with provision influenced by: staffing levels, service level agreements, populations, and geography [1]. This report presents the provision of UK HEOS during 2017–2018 obtained through a Freedom of Information request to all NHS Acute Providers (APs) [2].

Results were received from all APs with a hospital eye service (HES) (n = 127) of which 98% provided a HEOS. The majority of UK APs (75%) provided an appointment-based HEOS, based on telephone triage (78%) and available within normal working hours (69%). Where available, out-of-hours services are provided directly (77%), shared through agreement with another local AP (10%), or provided wholly by another AP (13%). 27% of APs provided consultant allocated sessions for HEOS, with the majority (72%) making provision for follow-up appointments within the HEOS. See Table 1 for national differences.

Table 1 Availability, access and delivery of hospital emergency ophthalmology services in the UK.
Full size table

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