The Staffordshire Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Service, a community based digital eye screening programme designed to detect and treat diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of blindness in the developed world, is on track to exceed its target of screening over 35,000 diabetes patients this year. The county-wide screening programme was one of the first in the country to be launched in March 2006 and screened over 28,000 diabetes patients across Staffordshire during its first year of operations to March 2007. The Service is now averaging 4,000 patient screenings per month leaving it well on track to exceed its target of screening 36,000 patients by March 2008. And as well as reaching out to an ever-increasing number of diabetes patients, the Service has also introduced a unique hospital choice system.
