An audit of the ophthalmic division of the accident and emergency department of the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, Dublin.

The objective was to study the patterns of emergency department visits and to make recommendations on ways of improving the service. Patients' demographic data, diagnoses, source of referral and follow-up were entered onto a database. Three thousand seven hundred consecutive patients' visits over a six-week period were entered. The average daily attendance ranged between 80-100 people. 54% of patients were self-referrals. 20% had a previous visit to the hospital. 17% were referred from a GP, 5% from another hospital and 3% from opticians. Superficial injury to the eye and ocular adnexae was the most common diagnostic category. 56% of patients were discharged at the first visit. 23% returned for review to casualty. 14% were referred to OPD, 3% directly to a consultant for review and 1% were admitted to hospital. Waiting times for consultation for patients was highly variable ranging from thirty minutes to five hours, mean two hours. The department provides a service far in excess of its defined function. Non urgent problems accounted for as much as 60-70% of all emergency department visits. Improvement of ophthalmic training of GPs, introduction of an ophthalmic triage system and expansion of outpatient services is recommended so that casualty remains a genuine emergency service and not a primary care service with uncontrollable numbers and unacceptable waiting times for patients.