For GPs

patient image

The easiest way for your patients with diabetes to be screened is to ensure that everyone with diabetes in your practice in correctly Reed coded as having the condition.  The screening programme will then receive a monthly list of everyone with diabetes - taken from regular data extracts from your practice system. 

The screening programme will send an appointment to all new patients on that list.  Old patients, known to the screening service, will receive annual appointments in any case.

If you have a new patient, and you don’t want to wait for the next quarterly electronic list collection by your PCT, you can email a Referral form to eyescreening@nhs.net.

If you experience problems with our service please email the programme manager louis.bolter@nhs.net or the clinical lead john.anderson@nhs.net.

More information for GPs
Each May we will send you a list of all patients from your surgery who failed to attend for diabetes eye screening despite being sent appointments in the last financial year. People on this list are very likely to fail to attend again. To improve your practice’s attendance rate you may wish to have a member of staff target explanation and advice to the people on this list.

The time to plan this is at the beginning of the financial year, when there are over 10 months in which to sort things out. If you leave this process to year end, you may not be able to reach all the patients, and there may not be enough clinic slots left in the screening clinics. It is worth planning ahead.

GP surgeries can access the images and results from their patients' screening encounters via a secure internet connection over the NHS 'N3' network. 

To obtain secure access please complete the Remote Access request form  and return it to eyescreening@nhs.net

 

Levels of advanced diabetic retinopathy in North East London are quite stable, the result of the introduction of two-year recall in screening can be seen in the reduced number of R0M0 patients in 2025.

2021-2025
 

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

R0M0

58446

65188

67987

73913

61986

R1M0

16475

18515

20478

21799

23147

R1M1

2875

3001

2952

3248

3241

R2M0

182

212

258

207

239

R2M1

573

450

463

426

456

R3aM0

128

124

72

93

73

R3aM1

280

260

195

189

185

Ungradable

1983

2569

2546

2844

3095

 

Analysing these images is carried out by a team of specially qualified graders.  The most recent data on costs for this available are from 2022 and are included here for your information.

 

Costs per annum (pa), per week (pw), and per hour (ph)
Grading level (band) Salary and on costs pa Total WTE pa Total cost pa Weeks worked pa Hours worked pw Patient grading rate (per hour) Total annual cost per patient screened 
Level 1
Band 6 52721.17 2.19 115459.36 43 82.12 10 3.27
Band 5 46396.62 0.9 41756.96 43 33.75 10 2.88
Band 4 35119.88 1.75 61459.78 43 65.62 10 2.18
Band 3 30082.88 0.64 19253.04 43 24 10 1.87
Level 2
Band 6 52721.17 0.84 44285.78 43 31.5 10 3.27
Band 5 46396.62 1.25 57995.78 43 46.88 10 2.88
Band 4 35119.88 0.13 4565.58 43 4.88 10 2.18
Level 3
Band 7 64539.40 0.32 20652.61 43 12 10 4.0
Band 6 52721.17 0.51 26887.80 43 19.12 10 3.27