I’m delighted to receive the NIHR Senior Clinical and Practitioner Research Award. This will give me the time and support to build a programme of research around the work we’re doing to transform how eyecare is delivered. By embedding research directly into our live services – like the Single Point of Access – we can answer critical questions about patient choice, equity, and digital care, and make sure the evidence we generate shapes national policy and benefits patients across the NHS.
Single Point of Access is a politically prominent, award-winning pathway initiative that enables community optometrists to send patients directly to their preferred hospital for triage. This fast, future-ready design improves the overall patient experience.
Thomas’s research will explore how Moorfields can develop digital/virtual hospitals. The focus will be on embedding core principles from the start of the patient pathway, at the point of referral. These foundations include patient choice, addressing health inequality, delivering value-based medicine and implementing clinical Artificial Intelligence.