DIABETES RETINAL SCREENING SERVICE

DavidAndersonBuilding

Foresterhill Road

ABERDEEN

AB25 2ZP

Date: 25/06/09

Your Ref:

Our Ref: SH/MB

Enquiries to:

Telephone:0845 3302320

Fax:01224 550456

Dear Colleagues

Changes to Diabetic Retinopathy Screening (DRS)

What are the changes?

On Thursday 16th July, Soarian and SCI-DC will undergo upgrading work which will be completed by Thursday 23rd July. The new version of SCI-DC will provide an easy to use interface for primary care practices to manage suspensions/inclusion and monitor the status of patients in the screening programme.

As you are aware, practices need to ensure that all individuals with diabetes mellitus (excluding gestational diabetes) are registered with the screening programme. This should ideally be done through SCI-DC. In order to ensure that the correct patients are included in the programme, practices also need to manage suspensions through SCI-DC. While the DRS programme manager and administrator will continue to provide advice/support for this, the changes to the software will mean that most suspensions cannot be instigated by the DRS team, and so from 23rd July the practice will have to do this.

You can suspend individuals from the screening programme under the following reasons:

  • Informed choice to opt out;
  • Terminal illness;
  • Unfit for treatment;
  • Temporarily unavailable;
  • Not diabetic;
  • Total loss of vision (on the advice of an ophthalmologist only);
  • Deceased.

Individuals who move out of Scotland or die will be automatically removed from the programme. Patients not suspended through SCI-DC will be called for screening.

What training and advice is available?

Two reference documents which you may find particularly useful in relation to this are the ‘SCI-DC Diabetic Retinal Screening User Guide’ and ‘Scottish Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Collaborative Policy on Suspensions’. The former provides detailed information on the practicalities of how to register a suspension and monitor your patients on SCI-DC, and the latter gives clear guidance regarding when individuals should be suspended, which category to use, how long this will last etc. Media/video clips will also be available on SCI-DC showing how to use the new screens.

As usual, if you require advice on individual registrations/suspensions, please contact Margaret Bruce or Jill Munro 01224 550196/7. If you would like refresher training on using SCI-DC or the DRS programme, please email or

Please note that during the period 17th - 23rd July, you will not be able to access any changes made to SCI-DC during that period, and so use of the system for patient management will be limited.

Yours sincerely

Dr Simon HiltonDr John Olson

Consultant in Public Health MedicineDiabetes Retinal Screening Service Clinical Director

NHS Grampian & Orkney Screening CoordinatorNHS Grampian

Dr Mark HoulistonMrs Margaret Bruce

Clinical Lead for DiabetesDiabetic Retinal Screening Service Manager

Grampian Managed Clinical NetworkNHS Grampian

Enclosed/attached – guidance docs as detailed above x2