Engagement work to support the North and North East Lincolnshire CCGs in informing and involving patients, the public and stakeholders in regard to the procurement and recommissioning of the ophthalmology services is to begin shortly.
The service is currently a single service with additional day case support from an external provider. Plans are in place to split the service into two parts; a Clinical Assessment and Treatment Service (CAT), which will see the vast majority of patients as day cases, and a hospital based service (HES) for the small number of patients who require an admission or are a complex day case and need to be seen outside of the CAT service.
The purpose of the patient and stakeholder engagement is to communicate the ‘case for change’ and to identify patients’ priorities for ophthalmology services to inform the specification for procurement of the CAT service and the recommissioning of the inpatient (HES) service.
The CCGs are developing a survey for use online and in hard copy format. Enventure Research will provide support with survey design and host the online version of the survey, which will be promoted in outpatient clinics to patients, families and carers. The survey will be optimised for smartphones, PCs, laptops and tablets to ensure that respondents can take part no matter what device they are using. Patients will also be able to complete a paper version of the survey.
Enventure Research will analyse the results of the online survey alongside the paper responses. Qualitative feedback from a number of focus groups and meetings facilitated by the CCGs will also be analysed by Enventure Research. All feedback, both qualitative and quantitative, will be collated into one interpretive research report which will provide useful recommendations to the CCGs to inform the procurement and recommissioning of services.