CHEC is excited to announce that its Patient Booking App has been shortlisted for the Tomorrow’s Care Awards 2023. CHEC’s Patient Booking App was launched earlier this year and is the first of its kind to be launched by a community health service. The app supports patients to be seen as efficiently as possible, allowing patients to flexibly book a time slot based on the urgency of their appointment. By giving patients a range of options for booking appointments, the app has helped minimise cancellations and missed appointments from patients. Jon Dore commented, “The shortlisting of our Patient Booking App demonstrates the positive impact it has had on our patients. The Patient Booking App is an important innovation that supports CHECs model of efficient, high-quality community ophthalmology services, which we continue to grow across the country. It’s great to see our hard work recognised alongside the other deserving finalists by Tomorrow’s Care.” The Tomorrow’s Care Awards are now in their seventh year, with the 20 finalists selected for being the most innovative products and services in the healthcare industry. Vote for Patient Booking App – CHEC here. Voting will remain open until Monday 13th March. Thank you for your continued support and fingers crossed we win the award! CHEC has announced the opening of a new treatment centre in Basingstoke, providing ophthalmology and endoscopy services to patients. The clinic will be CHEC’s first site in Hampshire, expanding CHEC’s services across England. Its strategic location in the centre of Basingstoke will make it easily accessible for patients in the local community. On the launch, Jon Dore said, “The expansion of our services across the South will help us reach more patients that are in urgent need of efficient, high-quality eye treatment and diagnostic endoscopy services. “As NHS backlogs are continuing to rise, it’s vital that we provide the services to support patients in as many locations across the UK as possible. As always, we look forward to welcoming the Basingstoke community to our new facility and supporting them with their healthcare needs.” The launch will help assist the NHS by providing care for a proportion of the half a million people currently waiting for ophthalmic treatment, freeing up the NHS to focus on other crucial services. The site is due to open in December and will follow CHEC’s recent opening in Accrington, making it CHEC’s 17th site in England, as part of its significant efforts to expand its offerings in the North West and Midlands. CHEC has attained the Great Place to Work® Certification following its entry in the Best Workplace™ Trust Survey. The Best Workplace™ Trust Survey is the world’s largest study of workplace excellence and people management practices. Companies that enter the Best Workplace™ programme become eligible to attain the Great Place to Work® Certification, as well as potentially other Best Workplaces™ Lists. The Certification™ is based on positive employee feedback through surveys and a company culture audit. Only the most trustworthy companies are Certified™, and it provides a fantastic opportunity for companies to earn recognition. Amanda Williams, HR Director commented on the certification, “This is the first time CHEC has chosen to enter the Best Workplace™ Trust Survey and we are absolutely delighted that we have achieved the certification of being a Great Place to Work. “Taking part gives CHEC the opportunity to be publicly recognised as one of the Best Workplaces™ nationally and globally. As a business we will continue to maintain the level of engagement achieved and identify opportunities to further improve our employee engagement agenda.” This certification is the latest of CHEC’s recent successes, following being shortlisted as a finalist for the upcoming Tomorrow’s Care 2023 Awards, and winning ‘Most Engaging Stand’ at this year’s 100% Optical event. CHEC has announced its collaboration with Scope Eyecare, a leading provider of eyecare and healthcare products. The first joint event will be a virtual CPD learning workshop on 5th October, with a second CPD event announced for 29th November. This Continuing Professional Development (“CPD”) event can be attended via Zoom and will run from 7.00 – 8.00pm. It will offer attendees the opportunity to learn more about the collaboration and gain valuable industry insight and training in eyecare and health. Discussing the collaboration, Jon Dore said, “This collaboration with Scope Eyecare allows both organisations to share our expertise and support community optometrists with their ongoing educational development. “Our upcoming virtual CPD events will prove helpful for optometrists in their day to day work and we are excited to see this partnership flourish as we plan further joint events.” The CPD event will feature renowned consultant ophthalmologist, Ms Nikolina Budimlija, as a guest speaker, who will be discussing common corneal conditions. Budimlija has over 13 years of ophthalmic experience, graduating from the University of Zagreb and training in ophthalmic surgery at the Clinical Hospital Centre, Sestre Milosrdnice, Zagreb. As an expert in her field, Nikolina has been part of the Institute of Eye Surgery (IoES) since 2019. Tom Freyne, Managing Director at Scope, also added, “We are proud to collaborate on quality education events with CHEC. We believe the rapid access to high-quality patient care for ophthalmology patients is a stand-out success factor for CHEC. They also have a strong belief in quality education for optometrists and other important HCPs in the community.” Ms Nikolina Budimlija, Consultant Ophthalmologist The collaboration is part of CHEC’s continued expansion, with the latest site in Accrington opening in November, which will be celebrated with a further virtual and in-person CPD event. The upcoming virtual CPD events follow CHEC’s CPD Open Evening Event in Northampton. Click here to register. This week, CHEC is celebrating one year since our treatment centre in Coventry opened! In the last 12 months we have treated an amazing 8,961 patients, providing a wide range of ophthalmic services: Cataract – Consultation 1611 Cataract – Herts Valley Pre Auth 1 Cataract – Operation 1590 Cataract – Virtual Pre-Assessment 65 Doctor Post Cataract Virtual 4 Doctor Post Cataract 163 Follow Up Consultation 685 Follow Up Telephone Assessment 78 General Optom 1 GVC investigation 170 Initial Appointment Telephone Assessment 135 Initial Consultation 506 Minor Op 46 OCT Assessment 402 Post Cat Telephone assessment 15 Post cataract check 20 VF Assessment 58 VF/OCT 718 Virtual Clinic Assessment 2022 wAMD – Follow Up 73 wAMD – Initial 102 wAMD – Injection 61 wAMD Monitoring 15 YAG 420 Grand total 8961 We are so proud of our hard-working staff for making our first year a great success. We had a fantastic time celebrating with our patients and are excited to see what the next year will bring in Coventry! Last week, our longest-serving Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II died peacefully aged 96. Our condolences are with the Royal Family at this time. Rest in Peace Queen Elizabeth II. Monday 19th September is a state funeral, and the day has been declared a national bank holiday. At CHEC, we always put our patients first. Therefore, we have decided to continue to provide services as planned. Patients may wish to cancel or rearrange their appointment or procedure and we will manage this request. CHEC will be open as normal on 19th September, to ensure all patients have our services available. Thank you for your continued support. CHEC has announced the opening of a new treatment centre in Accrington, Lancashire. Amid rising NHS waiting lists, the centre will become an important channel for easing the backlog on elective eye care through its provision of high-quality ophthalmological treatment to the local community. The Accrington site is the latest in a run of CHEC treatment centres recently launched across the North West, including sites in Preston and Blackpool. This North Westerly expansion – part of a broader rollout of new centres across the country – will offer vital help to those communities in Lancashire and South Cumbria which are experiencing particularly severe NHS backlogs. Commenting on the new centre, Jon Dore said: “With NHS backlogs continuing to rise, the need to support the NHS in reducing wait times is clear. Our centre in Accrington will offer the NHS vital support in reducing these backlogs and ensuring that patients receive timely high-quality care. “With patient experience at the heart of all we do, we look forward to providing vital ophthalmology and endoscopy services for the local Accrington community.” Before patients begin to arrive at the centre in October, CHEC will host two CPD events to introduce the new site and showcase the support it will offer to the local community. One event will be held online and the other in-person. Attendees will also have the opportunity to attend a CPD seminar, enabling optometrists to gain valuable CPD points. In July, CHEC Slough celebrated its first anniversary. Well done to everyone involved in this success. In the past year, the hospital staff have treated 5,404 patients, helping reduce the NHS backlog. Service Count Cataract – Consultation 1418 Cataract – Herts Valley Pre Auth 3 Cataract – Operation 1543 Cataract – Virtual Pre-Assessment 194 Doctor Post Cataract Virtual 13 Doctor Post Cataract 192 Follow Up Consultation 527 Follow-Up Telephone Assessment 73 GVC Investigation 24 Initial Appointment Telephone Assessment 150 Initial Consultation 443 Minor Op 49 Post Cataract Telephone assessment 47 Post Cataract Check 85 VF/OCT 508 YAG 135 Grand Total 5404 The Slough team had a great time celebrating with patients, keep up the good work Sundeep and team!