Assessing The Quality Of Ophthalmic Training Offered In The Uk Independent Sector

Published 2025 - 43rd Congress of the ESCRS

Reference: PO818 | Type: Poster

Authors: James Hennebry* ¹ , Aiman Nasir Jamal ¹ , Richard Newsom ² , Andrew Turnbull ¹

¹Ophthalmology,University Hospitals Dorset,Bournemouth,United Kingdom, ²Ophthalmology,SpaMedica,Poole,United Kingdom

Purpose

To assess the experience of resident doctor trainees
undergoing phacoemulsification surgery training within
the independent sector (IS).

There is an increasing body of evidence
demonstrating that trainees are struggling to achieve
sufficient cataract cases and high quality cataract training in the National Health Service (NHS) setting.
Several local training schmes have organised for trainees to start accessing training opportunities in the independent
sector. However, comparatively little has
been done to assess the quality of surgical training that
trainees are receiving in the independent sector.

Setting

Widespread independent sector training is a
relatively new phenomenon in the UK. We were interested in how independent sector training
was being received by trainees across the UK. We
therefore surveyed trainees who had experienced both
NHS and IS cataract training to ensure that the IS training
is non-inferior to the gold standard of NHS cataract
training.

Methods

In June 2024 we surveyed a group of 19 trainees who
had experienced training in both sectors. All trainers
within both the NHS and IS were accredited as clinical
supervisors by their local Deaneries and trained to
RCOphth protocols. The IS helped distribute the
anonymous questionnaire to all the trainees that were
currently training on IS cataract lists. We asked
the trainees a series of 18 questions relating to both
independent training and NHS training and marked them
using a visual analogue score from 0 (negative) to 100
(positive). We compared the results using a paired t-test.
Answers were anonymised to allow for accurate
feedback.

Results

IS cataract training was found to be non-inferior

to NHS gold-standard training in all aspects

assessed.  Compared to NHS training there were: more

suitable training cases on IS lists (mean 6.26 vs 2.63;

P<0.01); trainees gained a better understanding of high

volume (8+) cataract surgical lists in the independent

sector (P<0.001) and learnt a wider variety of

phacoemulsification techniques (P<0.01). They enjoyed

better training regularity, consultant support,

improvement, and patient turnaround compared with NHS

training (P<0.01)

Conclusions

This trial demonstrated that trainees found
their experience in the independent sector non inferior to
the NHS, they valued the larger number of cases,
learning new phacoemulsification techniques and the
support of the staff. Overall, they felt that they learnt
rapidly within this environment. As more cataract
operations are performed in the IS, it is useful to know
that surgical training can be successfully implemented in
this environment. The IS may be a useful environment to
teach other ophthalmic procedures in the future.