First in country as eye surgeons leave QEH to set up in GP surgery
LYNN'S Queen Elizabeth Hospital has lost two of its senior eye surgeons in a move which they say is a first for the country.
Consultant opthalmic surgeons Neil Johnson, from Fakenham, and Cliff Jakeman, from Wisbech, have set up practice in a GP surgery in Wisbech.
They will continue to see NHS patients, including patients from Norfolk, but say this is the first time consultant opthalmic surgeons will have been available at a GP surgery full-time.
Lynn’s Gayton Road surgery offers cataract treatment, but only from a visiting surgeon.
Mr Johnson, who left the QEH on Friday after 15 years at the hospital, was the senior consultant there. Mr Jakeman had worked at the hospital for the past 13 years.
They will see patients at their new Wisbech base and perform cataract and glaucoma procedures at the town’s North Cambs Hospital.
Mr Johnson explained the move was in line with the Government’s initiative for more patient choice.
He said: “Patients won’t have to travel to Lynn, they will see us closer to home and will see one of us rather than a junior and won’t expose themselves to other hospital infections. They will get seen more quickly and this arrangement is cheaper for the primary care trust.
“In conjunction with GPs we will be able to give the best service we can.”
Mr Richard Humphries, spokesman for the QEH, said the two had given notice of their departure so there had been time to replace them and it was “business as usual”.
He said some of their patients would go from QEH to see them at Wisbech, but the hospital was now also seeing some patients from Cambridgeshire and South Lincolnshire.
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Weather for King's Lynn
Sunday 27 May 2012
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