Helping sight services across Staffordshire and Shropshire

We’re helping the 50-strong diabetic eye screening team at the Midlands
Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust to complete important checks
for more than 120,000 people.

Enabling Seamless Services

The Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) was formed in 2018 and delivers integrated health services to 1.7 million people. Its diabetic eye screening programme (DESP) is a key part of its work, helping 120,000 service users to access the regular checks they need to avoid sight-threatening retinopathy. The DESP team uses our OptoMize software as an end-to-end solution, as service manager for Staffordshire Jade Freeman explains:

“NEC OptoMize supports everything we do, and we rely on it daily. It’s how we contact service users, book appointments, complete screening and grading, connect to hospital ophthalmology systems and plan for the future.”

Jade Freeman, Service Manager, MPFT

Reaching out to everyone

Effective screening programmes rely on high levels of coverage. This is why the software has built-in failsafe measures, including seamless connections to the equipment. It also helps the team to identify and reach out to people who have missed appointments.

“Unlike the software I’d used before, NEC OptoMize lets patients book their own appointments. Having that option is great, because we can see if someone misses a clinic and contact them straight away to suggest they book online. We can also attach all kinds of documents or images to a patient’s file automatically. With my old system, I had to type everything in.”

Emma Smith, Service Manager, Shropshire

Matching Supply and Demand

The programme’s team leaders also use the Capacity Planning module to arrange clinics in its 43 settings, which span community centres, mobile vans and even prisons. By predicting the number of patients that are due to be recalled for screening in any month, the team can arrange clinic times to smooth demand and ensure that no group of patients waits too long. This includes planning for ‘health equity clinics’ in unusual sites, like schools or football clubs, to bring the services closer to service users who have been lost to the system for some time.

“NEC OptoMize helps everyone in our team to work efficiently while reaching out to as many services users as possible. It’s easy to use for staff and patients and supports every aspect of our work.”

Jade Freeman, Service Manager, MPFT

Responsive support when it’s needed

Our OptoMize experts are always on hand to help, working well with both the service leads
and the IT team. “NEC’s development team is fantastic,” says Jade, “and they’ve built good
relationships with our own IT staff. That’s important to us, because our cameras always need that seamless connection to the software.”