The commissioner is seeking practitioners to provide triage and treatment of all GOS18 secondary care referral forms within the Commissioners boundary and offer a timely assessment of the needs of a patient subsequently attending with an eye condition. Practitioners will be accredited optometrists, ophthalmologists or Ophthalmic Medical Practitioners (OMP) with suitably equipped premises who will manage the patient appropriately and safely. Management will be maintained within the Community setting for as many patients as possible, therefore avoiding unnecessary referrals to hospital services. Where referral to secondary care is required it will be to a suitable specialist with appropriate urgency. Patients may be referred by GPs or Optometrists.

The commissioner is open to new models of service delivery and encourages innovation in delivering patient centred solutions to the provision of this service.

Providers will need to deliver high quality, efficient services which are responsive to the needs of the local communities, in line with national guidance and local requirements.

The service will be commissioned using the Any Qualified Provider (AQP) process. In securing services under the AQP process assurance of competence, quality and safety standards are required. Any provider will be eligible to join the qualified provider list subject to them demonstrating competency against specified criteria. Qualified providers will be expected to deliver the service under the NHS Standard Contract. As a qualified provider there are no levels of guaranteed activity and payment will be made based on actual provision.