About
Ophthalmology training in KSS is a seven year run-through programme that combines learning eye medicine with surgery while working within a wide multi-professional team incorporating nurses, orthoptists, optometrists, and technicians.
As a School we are dedicated to providing the most compassionate patient-centred care while accommodating the newest diagnostic and therapeutic techniques available to Ophthalmology. You will develop your specialist expertise whilst simultaneously being equipped for service innovation. HEE KSS trainees are best placed to deal with rising patient expectations, which frame our training and which we rightly aspire to meet and exceed.
We aim to have trainees stay in the same hospital for the first two years of rotation and get the benefit of some stability. Trainees will then rotate around posts in KSS for ST3 to ST7 years, ensuring a good mix of experience in all of the Ophthalmology sub-specialties, and immerse themselves in one sub-specialty for the final year. The undertaking of research is actively supported by a regional group run by trainees for trainees.
We aim to give a good grounding in the basics for the first two years, including a good start to gaining competency in cataract surgery. We support all our trainees in achieving a goal of having completed 100 cataract operations by the end of the ST2 year, which is twice the number recommended nationally. Our surgical training has always been excellent in its quantity and quality. We were proud to be in the top three regions for 10 out of 18 domains in the GMC National Training Survey and will be striving to maintain that level of commitment to training.
Curriculum
To review the Ophthalmology training curriculum, visit the Royal College of Ophthalmologists website.
Where will I train?
Trainees rotate around the following posts in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex:
Kent
– East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust- Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Canterbury and William Harvey Hospital, Ashford.
– Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust- Maidstone Hospital and Tunbridge Wells Hospital.
Surrey
– Ashford and St. Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust- Ashford Hospital and St Peter’s Hospital.
– Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust – Frimley Park Hospital.
– Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust- Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford.
– Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust- East Surrey Hospital, Redhill.
Sussex
– East Sussex Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust- Conquest Hospital, St. Leonards-on-Sea, and Eastbourne District General Hospital.
– Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust- Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton.
– Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust- Southlands Hospital, Shoreham-by-Sea, Worthing Hospital and St Richard’s Hospital, Chichester.
To find out more about each training location, please visit the Local Education Provider webpage.
Support
Four times a year we have regional whole-day teaching which all trainees attend. We have an excellent network of College Tutors who look out for trainees in each unit and attend Specialty Training Committee (STC) meetings quarterly, where we sort out training issues. A trainee representative for the region also attends and gives survey and informal feedback from all the trainees.
In each unit, all the consultants involved in training and a trainee representative for the unit attend the Local Faculty Group (LFG) four times a year, where training issues are discussed. We discuss the GMC survey every year at STC and LFG meetings and demand action where things can be improved. All of this adds up to a very robust system in picking up problems and solving them for the benefit of trainees.