Standards & Guidance

Our range of high-quality guidance helps to maintain standards in the planning, practice and commissioning of patient care. Our clinical guidelines provide evidence-based recommendations across all aspect of care or of eye conditions; Concise Practice Points make recommendations for less frequent and targeted clinical situations, succinctly describing the scientific and clinical evidence alongside expert input to enhance clinician and patient decision making. Our Commissioning guidance supports eye units to develop services to meet local population needs.

Idiopathic Epiretinal Membranes CPP

Several changes in vitreoretinal (VR) practice have questioned the traditional practice of surgery only in more advanced cases with reduced vision, and earlier surgery has been advocated. In addition, a common dilemma in patients with no or minimal symptoms, particularly in the presence of advanced ERMs, is the risk of progression. In this Concise Practice Point, we critically appraise published literature to produce evidence-based recommendations on criteria for referral, decision to operate, follow up and surgical technique used by vitreoretinal surgeons.

Cataract National Data Set Specification

This document describes the data set for cataract surgery. The Royal College of Ophthalmologists is the content sponsor for the Cataract National Data Set. It was originally published in April 2010 by the Information Standards Board (ISB) as an inherited information standard based on good evidence of its use a) in electronic cataract care records and b) to support national audit, benchmarking, research, and quality improvement. It is approved for use for those purposes within units providing cataract surgery. However, some amendments are required to fully align the data set with other Information Standards as specified in the Data Dictionary and to make it fit for use to communicate information between systems i.e. for interoperability.

Diagnostic Pathway following Child Vision Screening

Summarises the referral pathway for children who fail vision screening aged 4 to 5 years as part of the childhood vision screening programme.

Managing Nystagmus in Childhood

A single point of reference for busy clinicians when managing these complex patients from differential diagnosis, through long-term management, to discharge. It also covers provision of support for patients and carers throughout and beyond clinical care pathways.

Intraoperative Antimicrobial Prophylaxis in Elective Cataract Surgery Patients

In this Concise Practice Point, we critically appraise published evidence to produce evidence-based recommendations on Intraoperative Antimicrobial Prophylaxis in Elective Cataract Surgery Patients.

Referral pathways for adult ocular tumours

This document provides advice to clinicains on referring suspected ocular oncology cases to the nationally designated ocular oncology centres.

Management of Angle Closure Glaucoma Guideline

These guidelines cover primary angle-closure only and specifically excludes secondary disease such as that resulting from uveitis or neovascularization. It is primarily for clinicians involved in eye care in the community and in hospital eye services and aims to inform clinicians. 1. What is the accuracy of current diagnostic tests 2. What is the effectiveness of different interventions 3. When to refer to hospital eye services 4. When to discharge to community Executive Summary

Designing Glaucoma Care Pathways using GLAUC-STRAT-FAST

Summarises existing guidelines to show how currently available training and qualifications enable Health Care Professionals (HCPs) to deliver care for patients with different categories of GLAUC-STRAT-FAST risk.

Treating Retinopathy of Prematurity in the UK

This guideline covers the screening and treatment of reinopathy of prematurity. Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a potentially blinding condition affecting low gestation and very low birth weight infants. Worldwide it is a major cause of preventable blindness. Screening for ROP is undertaken to identify ROP that requires treatment. This evidence-based guideline for the treatment of ROP was developed by a guideline development group (GDG) of The Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCOphth), the UK special interest group of ROP screeners and treaters (ROP-SIG) and the charity Bliss. The guideline was produced according to RCOphth standards for guideline development.