Optometrist Specialist

Go back East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust

Optometrist Specialist

The closing date is 10 October 2025

Are you passionate about patient care?

Do you want to expand your clinical knowledge and experience?

Do you want to work with a fantastic multi-disciplinary team?

We are looking for an enthusiastic, motivated and compassionate individual to work in an extended clinical role in our Optometric Services Team within Ophthalmology in East Kent.

The post will involve triage and managing patients in the urgent eye service, paediatric refractions, specialist contact lens fitting, virtual glaucoma review and much more.

Our clinics generally run Monday to Friday between 8am and 6pm.

Main duties of the job

The specific extended roles we are currently recruiting are :

Acute eye referral triage / advice and assessment of patients as part of the Urgent Eye Service team at the William Harvey Hospital, Ashford (training will be provided for this role)

Paediatric cycloplegic refraction and fundus examination at William Harvey Hospital in Ashford and Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone with autonomous clinical management plan.

Possible training in the glaucoma service including face to face independent optometrist clinics and virtual review.

Optometric examination of patients enrolled with clinical trials at EKHUFT

Assist in the training of Ophthalmic Technicians and other staff as necessary

Assist in the collection of data for Clinical Audit, when requested

About us

We are one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with fivehospitals and community clinics serving a local population of around 800,000 people.

Our vision is 'great healthcare from great people'.

Everything we do is guided by our values : 'People feel cared for, safe, respected and confident that we are making a difference'.

We have a new way of working at East Kent Hospitals, called 'We care'.

It's about empowering frontline staff to lead improvements day-to-day.

We're looking for compassionate people to be part of our improvement journey for the patients, families and carers we care for every day.

Job responsibilities

Please scroll down to access the full Job Description and Person Specification located in Documents to download.

If you have further queries please dont hesitate to contact the line manager using the contact details below.

Person Specification

Qualifications

General Optical Council registration

Higher Degree

Clinical Skills and Experience

Autonomous working, guided by board optometric policies

Diagnostic drug use / instillation of ophthalmic drugs

Working with elderly and children

Slit Lamp Assessment

Eye casualty assessment

Anterior Segment disease assessment

Experience of research and audit

Knowledge

NICE guidelines

Assessment of paediatric patients e.g. emmetropisation

Interpretation of ophthalmological test results e.g. visual fields / OCT

Experience of NHS computer systems

Independent prescribing

Personal / Professional Attributes

Basic IT skills

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust

£47,810 to £54,710 a yearpro rata per annum

#J-18808-Ljbffr