Keeping you safe during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Environment

• Patients will be seen by appointment only. The amount of face to face time is reduced by obtaining as much information as possible before the appointment and keeping visits to a minimum.
• We will maintain social distancing as much as possible
• We will try to avoid patients waiting by revising our appointment times.
• CORPORATE CLIENTS – we will ask for plastic chairs so that they can be cleaned between patients.
• We will be limiting patient numbers initially to ensure compliance.
• We will be able to check temperatures of staff and patients
• We will ask patients to use hand sanitiser or hand washing at the start of the consultation
• We will ask patients to use their own pen to sign any forms, or sanitise any pen used. We will also sanitise any clipboards that are touched when signing forms.
• We will use a cough guard on our slit lamp.
• We will wear appropriate PPE throughout the examination and the PPE will be changed according to guidelines.
• We will clean and disinfect all clinical equipment and door handles after every patient, as well as other surfaces that may have been contaminated, using a suitable disinfectant.
• We will ask patients to remove their own glasses, we will also request an old prescription to avoid having to measure the spectacles. If the spectacles have to be measured we will provide the patient with a wipe to sanitise their frames before we touch them. We will then wipe the frames to sanitise them before we return them to the patient.
•  We will sanitise the display frames before and after patients have tried them on.
• We will support good tissue practice (catch it, kill it, bin it) for patients and staff by having tissues readily available.

Patients

• Patients will be seen by appointment only.
• We will ask patients to confirm that they are well and that no one in their household is exhibiting relevant symptoms (a new, continuous cough and/or a high temperature and/or loss of, or change in taste or smell. Patients with these symptoms or if anyone in their household has these symptoms should let us know to cancel their  appointment.
• If we are exhibiting symptoms (a new, continuous cough and/or a high temperature and/or loss of, or change in taste or smell) then we will not be able to carry out the service and will notify patients.
• If we are advised to isolate due to NHS Track and Trace then we will rearrange the appointments.
• We will use a telephone or video triage system to determine whether a patient needs to be seen  in order to minimise social contact and this will also depend on the services that are available through the hospital eye service. We will obtain as much information as possible over the telephone to reduce the amount of face to face time and will keep visits to a minimum.
•  If a patient reports a serious eye condition that requires urgent or emergency hospital treatment, we will direct them to the Hospital Eye Service without seeing them.
• We will obtain as much information as possible by email or telephone prior to an appointment in order to reduce the amount of face to face time.

Routine

• We will adapt our routine to reduce close contact with patients.
• We will have any discussions with the patient at a safe distance.
• We will practice good hand hygiene before and after any patient contact and we will try and avoid touching the patient where possible. We may ask the patient to open their eyes wide when looking down or ask the patient to hold their own eyelid or use a cotton bud to lift their lids if required. If worn, we will ask the patient to remove their own contact lenses.

Infection control

• If we do need to touch a patient, we will be scrupulous about hygiene before and after. We will decontaminate any equipment used appropriately.
• We will not be able to carry out certain procedures due to the increased risk.
• We will wear scrubs for the duration of the clinic, these will be removed from the premises in a cloth bag to enable them to be put into the laundry without the need to touch them further.
• We will require hand washing and changing facilities close to where the clinic is being held for corporate clients
• DOMICILIARY PATIENTS – We will use a camper van when local conditions permit, this will allow for hand washing/ comfort and changing facilities between patients

Referrals and dispensing

• We will consider referrals carefully depending on national and local NHS guidance.
• We will follow national guidance to keep face to face contact to a minimum so we may post new spectacles to the patient rather than arranging a delivery. We may also request that spectacles that require a repair are also posted to us.