Dear Practitioner,
There are changes being made to the way emergency referrals to University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay are to be sent. The new pathway is live now, however the previous methods of referral to Furness General Hospital and Royal Lancaster Infirmary will still be active until the 17th November, whilst we transition to the new process. All emergency referrals will need to be sent to ophthalmicemergencyreferral@mbht.nhs.uk – OPERA has been set up with this new endpoint. This is a central booking point for emergency referrals for both Furness General Hospital and for Royal Lancaster Infirmary. The triage team will contact the patient to offer an appointment at either Lancaster or Barrow-in-Furness. If your emergency referral requires same day assessment e.g. retinal detachment, then please telephone 01229 614149 before sending the referral. Again, this is the contact number for the central booking and triage team who can offer an appointment at either Lancaster or Barrow-in-Furness. The phone lines are open Monday to Friday 08:30 – 17:00 and Saturday to Sunday 09:30 – 14:30. Outside of these hours, an email is sufficient as emails are picked up from 08:30 in the morning Monday to Friday and 09:30 Saturday and Sunday. If a patient requires emergency care outside of the triage hours, where they cannot wait for referral to be triaged the following day, you should be raising this to the on-call doctor. You can do this by calling the hospital switchboard on 01229870870 and asking to be connected to the on-call ophthalmology doctor. If you are unable to reach the on-call doctor, then the patient can be directed to accident and emergency departments at Furness General Hospital or Royal Lancaster Infirmary. Routine and urgent referrals to CPCC will not be affected by the above changes and should be sent in the usual way. Thank you for your continued support. Kind regards, Timothy Bagot | 
