Diabetic Eye Screening services in Norfolk and Waveney are provided by InHealth (from 1st April 2024).
They extract diabetic patient data directly from practices clinical systems to send patients thier appointment invites, no action is needed by practices as long as diabetic patients are coded correctly.
Please note exception codes for excluding patients from recall are not included in their data set so there may be a need to manually inform them if a patient opts out or needs to be opted back in.
InHealth do have a clinical system ‘Sprectra‘ that practices can access to view and download patient results and reports. However this information will be sent to practices via email after a period of 6 weeks if practices choose not to access the system.
Using Spectra is a practice choice, not a mandatory requirement. However if practices choose not to use Spectra, and instead wait for the email with the reports attached, they still still need to attach these to patient notes and action in the same way as they would if they downloaded them from Spectra and then attached and actioned them.
Some practices may find Spectra easy to use and helpful. Others may not.
InHealth will process any referrals for diabetic related conditions themselves as well as an urgent incidental non-diabetic findings picked up. However, non-urgent, non-diabetic eye conditions which are picked up will come back to the GP to review and do any onward referral.
CQC are aware of the issue and have said that if a patient approaches the practice with their result asking for the action to be processed the practice should action it at that point rather than delay waiting for the InHealth email, which could be up to 3 weeks later.
Please see the communication from InHealth below.
InHealth Briefing Sept 2024