The Eyes Have It – £90,000 grant from League of Friends for eye care at Musgrove

The League of Friends of Musgrove Park Hospital has given a grant of close to £90,000 to improve and expand eye treatments at the hospital.

The League has approved the purchase of two new state of the art slit lamp cameras, which are used to get a clear view of any potential eye damage or disease.

Our ophthalmology service at Musgrove sees around over 750 patients each week and all these patients require a slit lamp examination.

A slit lamp exam is a test that lets an eye care specialist see every part of your eyes — including inside them. It's a common part of a routine eye exam.

Helen Evans, our senior operational manager for ophthalmology at the hospital, says the grant will enable the unit to clear a backlog of cases that has built up since the COVID-19 pandemic, and also future proof the service.

“We were elated on the opportunity of delivering our presentation to the panel, and the generosity of the League of Friends and their continued support to the ophthalmology service,” she says.

“I can’t thank the League enough as they gave us the opportunity to present to them what we wanted to spend the money on, and it was fantastic to show them how a slit lamp camera works in practice.

“The League has always supported us and this is another example of how they’ve helped us to provide the best possible ophthalmology care at Musgrove.

“Every patient that comes through an eye clinic will have tests or scans using a slit lamp, as it helps our colleagues to look at the patient’s eyes in greater depth.

“With a camera on top of the slit lamp, we’re now able to record those images, so if we need to refer a patient to another hospital for more specialised treatment, we have those vital images that we can send on with them.

“Slit lamps have evolved over the years, as ophthalmology has advanced in technology, and it’s now very much about the images we’re able to produce, so this development is so important to us.

“It’s a great training tool as well, as the camera gets down to the nitty gritty of every single ophthalmic face-to-face test or scan, which is so useful for colleagues to learn from.

“Having this new equipment means we can see even more patients too, as we’ll in effect have two extra slit lamps in our clinic rooms.

“Following the COVID-19 pandemic, our waiting times were around 12 months, but we’ve reduced that down to two months, and this will help us to bring them down further.

“In our ophthalmology department we’re always looking to see what we can do better and smarter, and that’s something we need to continue as the demand for eye care is ever increasing.”

Clinton Rogers, President of the League of Friends, adds: “They put forward a strong case and it is clear this donation will help a lot of patients moving forward.

“Our role is to improve services at the hospital and give money for state of the art equipment which perhaps the NHS trust might not be able to buy.

“We could not do any of this without the amazingly generous support of the public, which we are always so grateful for.”