Just think 111 first
Call 111 free of charge from any phone to be directed to a service locally that can best meet your needs. Many patients do not need to attend a hospital emergency department, 111 will guide you to an appropriate service. If they think you need to visit the Emergency Eye Department, they will organise for the department to contact you directly to make sure you get the care you need.
On this page you will find information:
- If you are a patient
- If you are an Optometrist or GP
Emergency Eye Department opening times:
08:00-20:00, 7 days a week
General Public
We are a very busy department; you should only attend in an emergency. We have listed what counts as an eye emergency below. For any other eye problem, you should call 111 who will be able to advise what you should do.
What is an eye emergency?
- Chemical injury
- Penetrating injury or eye lid laceration
- Severe pain or loss of vision within 4 weeks of surgery or treatment injection
- Sudden onset of double vision
- Sudden loss of vision with pain
- Sudden loss of vision without pain
- Painful loss of vision if contact lenses normally worn
- Pain or loss of vision after glaucoma drainage surgery or corneal transplant surgery at any time in the past
- Severe eye lid swelling with fever and loss of vision or double vision
- Eye pain keeping you awake at night
Are you already a patient at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital?
If you have had cataract surgery at MREH or Withington Community Hospital in the past 4 weeks, or attended the eye emergency department 2 weeks, please call 0161 701 0249 to be connected to the EED reception team.
If you are currently under the care of an MREH specialist team and need to speak to someone about an existing eye problem, or recent surgery please refer to the Contact us page to find the specialist team you need.
Community Urgent Eyecare Service
As a patient living in Greater Manchester you can now access urgent free eye care at a local optometry practice. The Community Urgent Eyecare Service allows patients to seek urgent advice closer to home, see this Urgent Eyecare Service leaflet to find out more.
Alternatively CLICK HERE and use this website to find practices providing this service in a location that suits you.
You can self-refer to this service by telephoning a participating practice of your choice.
Information for Optometrists and GPs
If a patient needs to be seen due to an eye or sight threatening emergency, they can be referred to our Emergency Eye Department (EED), please follow our advice below.
EED opening times – 7 days a week 08:00 – 20:00
Patients should be sent to MREH EED in the two scenarios below:
| When to send patient to EED | Process for primary care optometrists to follow |
| 1. Where the presenting complaint falls under the red section of the ‘REFERRAL GUIDELINES FOR OCULAR PATHOLOGY IN GREATER MANCHESTER’ document located on the GM LOCs website within the Emergency eye referrals section for each locality area | Where the presenting complaint falls into the red category of the guidelines table, you should send the patient straight to EED.
You do not need to call the department. MREH will not contact patients referred through on Opera, it is your responsibility to make sure they attend straight away. Give the patient a referral letter or an opera print-out to bring with them. |
| OR | |
| 2. After the patient case has been discussed with a clinician in the department. This is for cases where the presenting complaint does not fall into the red emergency section but you suspect the patient may still need some form of emergency care. | Optometrists can seek advice on a patient you think needs referring to EED by calling the department on 0161 701 0249 – 7 days a week 08:00-20:00
EED do not contact patients – it is the responsibility of the optometrist to follow up with the patient after seeking advice, which may include sending the patient to EED.
|
Referring to MREH EED on Opera
MREH recognise, practices using Opera will have used the system to refer to EED to evidence the end point the patient has been sent to.
Opera referrals to EED are not seen by clinicians.
There is currently no capacity for the clinical team working in EED to review referrals sent via Opera; no clinical feedback will be provided. Advice can be sought via telephone – 0161 701 0249
If you are sending a patient to EED, please print out the Opera referral or send a letter with them. This allows the EED to understand your clinician concerns and examinations undertaken.
Community Urgent Eyecare Services (CUES)
If you are not providing CUES in your practice, you should consider whether the CUES service could meet your patient’s needs, e.g. does this patient meet CUES suitability criteria? If so, please refer the patient onto CUES. You can use the information on the Primary Eyecare Service’s webpage to help your patient find a suitable optometrist .
Please be aware that patients arriving in our department undergo a clinical triage and in suitable cases we are streaming away from EED and directing patients to CUES.
If you are a CUES practice and do not have capacity to see a patient needing a CUES appointment, your practice is responsible for finding the patient an appointment from the local network of CUES practices.
Directing patients to an emergency service
Ideally patients should be directed to their nearest specialist emergency eyecare service or Accident and Emergency department, where they will have access to Ophthalmologists. We recommend using the GM LOCs website to read the emergency referrals advice for the CCG areas across Greater Manchester. From this webpage, you should navigate to the LOC areas listed in orange on the left hand side of the page, select an LOC then the ‘referrals’ option for the CCG area that your patient falls within, scroll down and choose ‘Emergency Eye referrals’ from options listed in blue rectangle boxes. Hospitals have different arrangements in place for you to refer to their emergency ophthalmic services.
