Hospital’s eye care unit will carry out cataract surgery (From The Advertiser Series)

Hospital’s eye care unit will carry out cataract surgery

11:51am Thursday 25th June 2009

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A WARD at Bishop Auckland Hospital is reopening as an eye care unit for patients in County Durham.

The unit will have its own operating theatre so that cataract surgery can take place at the hospital for the first time. It will be housed in the old Ward 9, which was a general surgical ward until it was shut because an increase in day-case surgery meant that fewer patients needed to stay overnight.

Jim Haslam, lead consultant surgeon for ophthalmology for the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The trust’s ophthalmology service has traditionally served Darlington and the south of Durham. However, we believe that, by moving our eye surgery to Bishop Auckland, we can attract more patients from the north of the county and develop one of the best eye units in the North- East.”

The unit will offer a full range of ophthalmology outpatient services, pre operative assessment, retinal screening, laser treatments for diabetic eye disease, fields tests, post-operative checks and a range of other eye operations that can be performed under local anaesthetic. The department will also have its own dedicated day case unit for ophthalmology patients.

Mr Haslam said eye tests and eye clinics in Durham and Darlington would continue on an outpatient basis.

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