{"id":3347,"date":"2026-06-11T11:46:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T10:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/?p=3347"},"modified":"2026-06-11T12:01:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:01:17","slug":"direct-optometry-referrals-to-eye-services-a-no-brainer-says-gp-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/direct-optometry-referrals-to-eye-services-a-no-brainer-says-gp-lead\/","title":{"rendered":"Direct optometry referrals to eye services a \u2018no-brainer\u2019, says GP lead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Proposals to allow optometrists to refer patients directly into NHS hospital eye services could help reduce delays and unnecessary GP appointments, says the Doctors\u2019 Association UK (DAUK).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Department of Health and Social Care has announced community-based optometrists &nbsp;will be able to refer patients directly and digitally into NHS hospital eye services with access to relevant patient records to support faster and more accurate clinical decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The move is intended to improve patient access to specialist eye care, reduce waiting times, and free up GP appointments by removing the need for patients to obtain a referral through their family doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK GP co-lead, welcomed the change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">No-brainer<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speaking to Pulse Today, he said: \u201cOf&nbsp;all the things that GPs&nbsp;don\u2019t&nbsp;need to be dealing with,&nbsp;eyes is one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;It makes sense that opticians can refer directly&nbsp;regarding&nbsp;eyes.&nbsp;It\u2019s&nbsp;probably&nbsp;a no-brainer.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt&nbsp;probably&nbsp;just&nbsp;takes&nbsp;a bit of the&nbsp;delay out of the service. If an optician refers to a GP and&nbsp;asks&nbsp;us&nbsp;to&nbsp;refer to the eye hospital,&nbsp;we\u2019re&nbsp;not going to say no.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pulsetoday.co.uk\/news\/clinical-areas\/ear-nose-throat-ophthamology\/optometrists-to-bypass-gps-with-direct-hospital-referrals\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Read the Pulse article and Dr Taylor\u2019s comments in full<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Please support our work by contributing to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/support-the-work-of-the-doctors-association-uk-dauk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">our crowd funder<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Proposals to allow optometrists to refer patients directly into NHS hospital eye services could help reduce delays and unnecessary GP appointments, says the Doctors\u2019 Association&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":3348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[24,22],"class_list":["post-3347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dauk-in-the-media","tag-dauk-in-the-media","tag-dr-steve-taylor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3347"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3364,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions\/3364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}