It was recently National Eye Health Week, which aims to raise awareness as to keeping our eyes healthy. In our article regarding this, one of the eye conditions mentioned was retinal detachment.

Symptoms of retinal detachment to are:

• floaters (dots and lines) or flashes of light in your eye
• a dark “curtain” or shadow in your vision
• changes to your eyesight, such as blurred vision

If you suffer a retinal detachment, which is when your retina, a thin layer at the back of your eye, becomes loose, this is a medical emergency. It needs urgent treatment to avoid permanent damage to the eye and loss of vision and it is imperative that those provide eye care to recognise and act urgently on the signs of retinal detachment.

Surgery to reattach a retina may involve:

• removing and replacing the jelly inside your eye (vitrectomy)
• attaching a small band around your eye to push the wall of your eye and retina closer together (scleral buckling)
• injecting a bubble of gas into your eye to push the retina against the back of your eye (pneumatic retinopexy)
• sealing the tear in your retina with laser or freezing treatment (cryotherapy)

The most crucial thing with retinal detachment is to ensure that treatment is provide urgently, in order to seek to treat before the detachment can extend to the macula. This was unfortunately not the case in a recently reported matter involving Specsavers. Sadly, a man in his 50s went blind in one eye due to a failure to refer him for urgent treatment. He made an urgent appointment at his local Specsavers after developing issues with his vision which turned out to be due to retinal detachment. In this case, the optometrist did diagnose that he had retinal detachment and advise that he would need urgent surgery. The issue however was that the optometrist, in spite of acknowledging the need for urgent surgery, delayed with making the referral for two days.

Two days may not seem like a long time to wait but by the time the referral was made, the damage to the eye was permanent and although he had surgery to reattach the retina, his vision could not be saved. Had he been advised that he should attend A&E on the same day that he had seen the optometrist, sooner referral to the eye services would have been made and he would have undergone the surgery sooner.

The effect of this would have been that his vision would have likely been saved. Although he still has vision in his other eye, the loss of vision on one side has had a profound effect, including the need to change employment.

If you or a loved one have experienced issues with care regarding retinal detachment, whether it is a failure to recognise retinal detachment, failure to refer for treatment in a timely manner or issues during treatment, our clinical negligence team have significant experience with claims involving ophthalmic issues.