The Macular Society have organised 2 information Days in the North East for patients. This will be held in August via teleconferencing. Please see below from Julie Swan (Regional Manager) for further details.

Patient Information Days

Stephanie Cairns, BSc(Hons) MCOptom Pgd Cert.Clinical Optometry & Chair NTW Local Optical Committee, will talk about the support available during Covid 19 and how to access help if you need it.

Friday 7th August 2020 at 10.30am will be Wet Macular specific – benefits of continuing treatments and changes to eye clinics to help people continue treatment during this time.

Friday 21st August at 10.30am will be Dry Macular specific.

If you would like to attend please register beforehand with Julie Swan by calling 07904 315605 and so she can send you details on how to join. Also you can submit questions to Julie before the events so she can forward to Stephanie Cairns.

https://www.macularsociety.org/

Twitter@macularsocietyNE

For anyone requiring support or have an enquiry, please call 0191 2327292. Unfortunately staff members will only be available to take phone calls for the following times:

• Tuesday 11am – 3pm
• Thursday 11am – 3pm

All other days or times you can either leave a message on our answer machine and we will try to get back to you as soon as possible or you can continue to ring the following mobile numbers we have already provided:

• Sue 07958171431
• Jude 07958171424
• Jacqui 07506720593

Take care and stay safe.

Due to the Coronavirus the Board of Trustees of NVS have voted to cancel the 2020 AGM which was scheduled to take place in July.

Further details can be found on the letter which all our service users should have received by post. If you have not received a letter and would like a copy then please contact the office on 0191 232 7292. Due to the current situation staff will only be in the office on Tuesday and Thursday 11am – 3pm for telephone enquiries.

I hope you are all staying safe during these challenging times.

As you know staff have been working from home, ringing members for regular chats and when possible helping with queries. They have all done a great job and on behalf of you all I would like to thank them all for their dedication and commitment to helping others.

We are now starting to move towards working from the office in line with social distancing. We will not all be in together so we will continue to work from home on the days we are not in the office.

I know many of you are wanting to get back to groups etc and are missing the social aspects which, under normal circumstances we provide. We are following Government guidelines so unfortunately we can not start up the groups at the moment, but we are looking at alternative methods to enable you to meet up virtually.

Moving forward there will be staff in the office on a Tuesday and Thursday for any queries you may have, regrettably there will be no home visits until further notice.

Take care and stay safe everyone, we are still here to support you.

Thanks Sue

Retina International are currently conducting a study that aims to bring to light the issues faced by Wet Age-related Macular Degeneration (wet AMD) and Diabetes-related Macular Edema (DME) patients and their caregivers owning to routine anti-VEGF injection treatment.

They have recently launched a treatment survey and are looking for participants. If you have wet AMD or DME or you are a caregiver and you would like to participate then please click on one of the following links to complete the survey.

Wet Age-related Macular Degeneration (wet AMD) Patient Survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/wetAMDPatientSurvey

Wet Age-related Macular Degeneration (wet AMD) Caregiver Survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/wetAMDCaregiverSurvey

Diabetes-related Macular Edema (DME) Patient Survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DMEPatientSurvey

Diabetes-related Macular Edema (DME) Caregiver Survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DMECaregiverSurvey

If you would like further information regarding Retina International then please click on the following link http://retina-amd.org/

We hope everyone is coping during these unprecedented times.

At Newcastle Vision Support we are always striving to improve our services. We would appreciate it if you could help us complete 2 surveys using the links below so that we can gain valuable feedback for support and services we provide.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/J2ZNV86

For those that have used our Benefits service provided by Philippa, please can you complete the following survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6BC5Y7P

Sue and all the staff would like to thank everyone for continuing to support us.

Stay safe.

Due to the current situation of the Coronavirus the office is now closed until further notice.   

If you need to contact us, We will be checking our emails from home on a regular basis. Please click on the following link for a list of all our emails http://newcastlevisionsupport.org.uk/about-us/meet-the-team/ .

We will be operating a ring around service to keep in contact with our vulnerable service users. If you need to speak to someone urgently, please call one of the following numbers:

• Sue 07958171431

• Jude 07958171424

• Jacqui 07506720593

The latest updates will be posted on our Website and our Facebook page .

Take care and stay safe.

Sue and all the staff.

Due to the recent outbreak of the Coronavirus we have made the decision to cancel all groups until further notice.

We would like to assure you that there has been no cases of the Coronavirus within Newcastle Vision Support or MEA House. This decision is purely a precaution in the interest of vulnerable members.

We are still offering telephone support if needed, please ring 0191 2327292.