Glaucoma Treatment centre given green light at School of Optometry

With the increased need for Optometrists in the UK to become more involved in glaucoma care, the School of Optometry and Vision Sciences has partnered with Cardiff and the Vale University Health Board to secure an agreement for a Glaucoma Ophthalmic Diagnostic Teaching and Treatment Centre (ODTTC) in the School Clinics.

This partnership will ensure both our undergraduate and postgraduate students gain more experience in this growing area to fully equip them with the skills and knowledge to manage Glaucoma more effectively.

The hospital will use our CERF clinics every Wednesday, and the clinic will also be piloting the use of shared electronic records between a community and hospital clinic, thus enabling virtual patient review.

Professor Barbara Ryan, Director of Postgraduate Taught Programmes welcomed the addition of the new clinic and said “I am delighted with the addition of the Glaucoma clinic to our school, as well as helping us to stay at the forefront of undergraduate and postgraduate optometry education, we hope that in the longer term, this virtual clinic will provide significant opportunities for research”.

Consent to contact patients for research and teaching purposes will start straight away and we will seek to wrap teaching around the clinic from October 2019 once the clinic is established and any snags have been ironed out.

The ODTTC will start seeing patients in the School from 3^rd October 2018.