Your diabetic eye screening appointment

Your appointment with the DES programme

When you receive your appointment letter from us, please ensure that you contact us if you cannot attend so that we can allocate your time to someone else. 

If you do not let us know that you cannot attend this appointment, you will receive a subsequent invitation letter from us to make your own arrangements after the missed appointment. If we do not hear from you within 20 days of your invitation being sent out, you will receive a further reminder letter to ring us and make an appointment for the current year. If we do not hear from you after the final reminder letter sent to you, you will not hear from us for another year as we need to offer appointments on a priority basis in order to accommodate the needs of all of our patients.

If you have a history of non-attendance or non-response to our letters, we will change our method of contacting you by inviting you to ring us each year when you are due to be seen instead of pre-organising an appointment for you. In order to avoid this scenario, please let us know if you prefer to opt out of screening. This really helps our resourcing as we have a large screening population with varied needs in Highland to accommodate.

If you need to reschedule your appointment

If you need to reschedule your appointment, contact us.

You may be asked to travel to the nearest available site if you are rescheduling an appointment. Please do not wait for other venues if they are not available, as we may not be able to accommodate you promptly when you need to be seen. We rely on available accommodation throughout the Highland area to hold clinics, which is the reason why a local venue may not be available to you when you get in touch. 

We really appreciate your patience and understanding in helping us to continue to deliver a flexible, varied and accessible service in the community.

Infection control

Although the guidelines have changed in relation to social distancing and wearing face masks, we are still observing the following safety measures in Diabetic Eye Screening.

• Please try and arrive for your appointment at the time booked, and unaccompanied where possible to minimise people waiting. Within the Diabetic Centre in Inverness, we have increased the waiting area capacity, access to other venues may continue to be changed or restricted. This varies from site to site across NHS Highland and within community settings. Please be patient with staff at sites trying to accommodate attendance as safely as possible.
• You will be asked to wear a clinically supplied face mask throughout your examination. The mask will be an appropriate hospital issue type which we will provide for you when you arrive. This is particularly important during your screening appointment as the examination places you in close proximity with another person.
• You should continue to ensure that hand hygiene procedures are followed at the venue.
• Screening staff will continue to wear a mask for protection within the health care setting.

Screening exam processes

General notes when attending any of your screening examinations:

• Please bring your distance glasses if you have them.
• It would be helpful to bring your appointment letter along with you on the day.
• Please bring a snack or medication in case your waiting time is longer than anticipated.
• If you are under 16 years of age, please come with a parent/guardian.
• If you require support at the clinic, please come accompanied as waiting areas are often unstaffed.
• If you require eye drops on the day, please prepare for this and do not expect to drive as your vision may be blurred for a time afterwards. Having eye drops also adds extra time on to your appointment as the drops take an extra 20 minutes to dilate your pupils. You will be asked to wait outside again in the waiting area to allow this to happen and then called back into the screening room to complete your examination. Sunglasses or dark glasses are very helpful to ease the affects of having your pupils dilated after your appointment.
  • Slit lamp appointments always require eye drops on the day.
  • OCT appointments always require eye drops on the day.
• If you require any additional information over and above the letters issued by the screening programme, you should discuss this with your GP or health care professional in the first instance. Requests for copy images must be submitted in writing to the DES admin office.