Highly Specialist Optometrist

Job overview

• To work as an autonomous practitioner to assess, diagnose and manage any patient referred to the Optometry Department. The Optometry Department is a highly specialised department that provides comprehensive, quality and specialised optometric assessment to patients of all ages, ranging from babies to the elderly, persons with varying degrees of communication skills and varying degrees of visual impairment.

• The post-holder is required to perform refraction, low vision aid assessment and medical contact lens assessment & fitting.

• The post-holder will provide supervision and education of pre-registration optometry students.

• The post-holder will also be required to work as part of the multi-disciplinary team in one or more of the sub-specialised glaucoma, cataract, medical retina, research and paediatric ophthalmology clinics, undertaking “extended role” optometry work (dependent on experience).
• To provide teaching and training at undergraduate and postgraduate levels for various disciplines within ophthalmology (ophthalmologists, medical students, ophthalmic nurses, orthoptists, optometrists, ophthalmic photographers and other health professionals).

Main duties of the job

Optometry Clinical Responsibilities

• To be responsible as an autonomous practitioner prioritising workload and legally and professionally responsible for all aspects of own work for the evaluation of visual acuity, visual function and visual behaviour of all patients.

• To undertake objective and/or subjective refraction and perform the necessary numeric calculations to provide an accurate glasses prescription for the patient.
• To accurately assess and compare spectacle prescriptions using automated and manual focimetry.

• Assessment of the fundus and media using direct ophthalmoscopy, indirect ophthalmoscopy, or high-powered lenses at a slit lamp. This may be to detect and diagnose any ophthalmic conditions in new patients or to monitor stability and detect change in patients under review. In both situations the optometrist will need to make onward referral to ophthalmology advising administrative staff of the urgency of the referral or discharging patients.

• To be responsible for planning, implementing and monitoring individual optometric treatment plans/care pathways for patients of all ages using advanced clinical reasoning and evidence-based practice. These may vary from several months to several years. Treatment plans will need to be re-assessed and re-evaluate on return appointments.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please refer to the attached Job Description and Person Specification for a full list of role requirements and main responsibilities.