Specsavers 8th Clinical Conference (SCC), held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, saw more than 750 delegates participate in a weekend of professional development that covered a range of topics.
Guest speaker, Professor Scanlon, Director of the English NHS Diabetic Eye Screening Program, delivered a keynote address on diabetic eye disease, which was the major focus of this year’s conference. He discussed the role of the NHS Diabetic Eye Screening Program in the systematic, quality-assured processes for screening, assessment and treatment of England’s 3.3 million people with diabetes since 2003.
Professor Scanlon, Director of the English NHS Diabetic Eye Screening Program, delivered a keynote address on diabetic eye disease, which was the major focus of this year’s conference
Professor Peter Scanlon, Director of the English NHS Diabetic Eye Screening Program
The presentation coincided well with the Australian eye health sector embarking on increased annual diabetes screening among 1.2 million registered people with diabetes under the newly launched KeepSight initiative.
Professor Scanlon also presented alongside Professor Greg Johnson (CEO, Diabetes Australia), Associate Professor Peter Van Wijngaardem (CERA), and Peter Larsen at an industry-wide KeepSight Forum on the SCC Fringe.
As well as this, four SCC Fringe Talks took place within the exhibition area of the event with contributions from Nabil Jacob (Vision Australia), Dee Hopkins (CEO, Macular Disease Foundation Australia), Annie Gibbins (CEO, Glaucoma Australia) and Professor Greg Johnson (CEO, Diabetes Australia).
This year glaucoma continued to have an important emphasis at SCC, with results demonstrating continued improvements in detection and referral of undiagnosed glaucoma by Dr Ben Asby (Specsavers Aus/NZ Director of Optometry), and Peter Larsen (Specsavers Group Eye Heath Strategy Director).
A total of 15 speakers over the two days included the following RANZCO Fellows:
- Dr Caroline Catt (NSW) on optometric management of paediatric conditions,
- Dr Dru Daniels (WA) on glaucoma diagnosis and management,
- Dr Adam Rudkin (SA) on vitreoretinal emergencies,
- A/Prof Colin Chan (NSW) on how to keep your patients out of the hands of laser eye surgeons like me,
- A/Prof Peter van Wijngaarden (VIC) on diabetic retinopathy and KeepSight
- Dr Tu Tran (VIC) on glaucoma co-management and the Ophthalmologist Local Education and Engagement Program (OLEEP),
- Dr Lindsay McGrath (QLD) on decoding the alphabet soup of ocular oncology,
- Dr Elaine Chong (VIC) on interpretation of OCT in diabetes and age-related macular degeneration, and
- A/Prof Lyndell Lim (VIC) on optometric management of ocular inflammation.
This year, the 2019 Doug Perkins Medals for Clinical Excellence were awarded to Specsavers Dunedin (NZ) and Specsavers Dubbo (AUS). Winners and finalists were judged based on the Specsavers Professional Benchmarks Initiative, which defines and measures patient outcomes, allied to leadership skills, training and engagement with medicine.
The event concluded with recognition of SCC8 sponsors and announcement of SCC9 to be held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, September 12-13, 2020.
