New AMD centre open in Bradford

A new centre has opened in Bradford with the aim of improving access to care for people with age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Established in partnership with Bayer and the Bradford Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (BTHFT), the Bradford Macular Centre will increase the trust's capacity to treat more patients, while also easing pressure on the existing service's delivery times.

Fitted with state-of-the-art scanning equipment, included an optical coherence tomography device funded by Bayer, it is said this will also help improve the diagnosis and monitoring of AMD for patients.

Vision loss caused by wet AMD has become more common in recent years. As the number of patients requiring treatment have risen, eye services across the UK have been struggling to see and treat patients in a timely manner to prevent vision loss.

Speaking about the new centre, consultant ophthalmic surgeon, Helen Devonport, said: “The new centre has enabled us to increase the number of clinics from five per week, run over two and a half days, to 10 clinics per week run over five days.

“In addition, the number of patients that we can see per clinic has increased so we have more than doubled the capacity. This will result in new patients being seen and treated earlier, and follow up patients being seen on time, which we know improves the outcomes for our patients.”

Commenting on Bayer’s collaboration with the BTHFT, the medical director for ophthalmology at Bayer, Dr Jackie Napier, said: “Bayer is dedicated to helping the lives of those living with eye conditions. We are proud to support NHS Trusts across the UK to improve retinal services and care for people with sight-threatening eye conditions. We need to continue to work together as an ophthalmology community to overcome challenges in service delivery so we can preserve patients’ sight as much as possible.”