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Acute eye services

Posted By Anne Sjogrens

"Acute eye services"

About: Chard Hospital / Minor Injuries Unit South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust / NHS 111 Yeovil District Hospital / Accident and emergency Yetminster Medical Centre

(as a service user),

Disappointed - mistakes all the way. Acute eye pain - gp referred to wrong service. NHS scheme optician charged me for appointment as GP in wrong county even though I live in same town. (Own optician would charge me for eye test - and gave me triage phone number leading to a service I could not get to). 111 referred me to minor injuries unit - 3.5 hr wait and no diagnostic eye stain in stock. GP did not re refer to correct service. A&E initially 1 hour wait which stretched until over 4 hours. Another day passed and I finally got a NHS appointment in a town 40 mins drive away.

My GP, the ACES optician in Yeovil, my own optician, 111, Chard minor injuries and A&E all recognised that I should be seen urgently.

Moral:

Somerset ACES service should be based on or allow for location of patient in same town, not GP county.

New staff in my GP team should work as a team and understand which service to refer to - in this case the Royal Eye Infirmary at Dorchester, not CHEC Poundbury.

The Minor Injuries service in Chard should be better stocked to deal with eye problems and not run out of basic supplies.

The minor injuries unit in the Yeatman in Sherborne should be equipped to deal with eye injuries.

The queue display system in Yeovil hospital should be updated to show the actual state of the queue - it was stuck on the same inaccurate non live display screen. 

There should be better provision generally for acute eye care in Yeovil/Dorchester.

If I had known this was going to happen I would have contacted my consultant in Swindon as I am vulnerable to eye problems as I have Sjögren’s syndrome - I will copy this note to her anyway.

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Responses

Response from Senior Sister/Practice Nurse Educator, Emergency Department, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust last week
Somerset NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 09/06/2025 at 10:20
Published on Care Opinion at 10:20

Thank you for your feedback.

I am sorry that your whole journey to obtain the correct treatment was poor.

I have taken the feedback regarding the queue display system in Yeovil A&E waiting room was not working properly and will investigate why and aim to get this fixed.

I hope you have now received the correct care and are recovering well.

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Response from Michael Paynter, Nurse Consultant, Minor Injuries Unit, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust last week
Michael Paynter
Nurse Consultant, Minor Injuries Unit,
Somerset NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 09/06/2025 at 10:34
Published on Care Opinion at 10:36

Thank you for your post, I appreciate and understand the frustrations you encountered in attempting to navigate the system. I can only speak on behalf of the minor injury unit at Chard Community Hospital (managed by Somerset NHS foundation Trust), I am aware that there was a brief supply issue with fluoresceine eye drops (the eye stain) which lasted a day - I am very sorry that this caused a delay in your assessment and diagnosis. I do hope that your eye condition is now improving.

Mike Paynter, consultant nurse community urgent care services, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust

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Response from Marcus Pawson, Practice Manager, Yetminster Health Centre 4 days ago
Marcus Pawson
Practice Manager,
Yetminster Health Centre

Submitted on 12/06/2025 at 17:31
Published on Care Opinion at 19:24

We are very sorry for the challenges you have recently experienced.

As a GP Practice we provide good access to patients in a timely manner and we recognised that your eye condition needed some urgent attention. In general practice we do not have the specialist equipment to deal with this, so we are provided with a referral service. The service you were referred to was CHEC (Community Health & Eye Care) who provide specialist eye care for Dorset GP practices. I believe that the service isn’t widespread throughout Dorset, so would have required some travel by you. We have sent an email to NHS Dorset ICB regarding the service not covering enough area and complained that they were also advertising an incorrect telephone number.

Unfortunately, CHEC are funded by NHS Dorset ICB to see patients of GPs in the Dorset area exclusively and do not allow patients from another area to be seen. Both the Dorset ICB and Somerset ICB fund a similar service and have the same rules. Somerset, who have a similar service called ACES, will only see patients from Somerset GP practices. I note from your statement that you found this out and it is frustrating when you live across the border.

We have taken on board all your comments regarding newer staff and we do hope the situation with your eyes has now been now resolved.

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Update posted by Anne Sjogrens (a service user)

Firstly I am immensely grateful for the level of care provided by this excellent GP practice and this is an isolated incident which unfortunately met with a series of hurdles. CHEC Poundbury is accessible for me and does treat patients with Dorset GPs but in my experience it doesn’t offer timely treatment for acute conditions. The only appropriate route would be referral to Dorchester Hospital by GP or MIU.

By the time I realised that CHEC was not appropriate and Dorchester Hospital needed referrals, my eye had got worse. The MIU I attended did refer me but unfortunately they left a phone message rather than email so I was unable to get an appointment.

With a number of days passing including a weekend and bank holiday, the most practical solution turned out to be visiting an optician and paying for it - I ended up with 2 paid optician visits which would have been covered by the NHS if my GP was in Somerset.

I do appreciate this response but I believe CHEC is not for acute conditions.

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