Moorfields Private is the London-based private division of the world-renowned Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, with a reputation as a centre of excellence for providing ophthalmic care to private patients from the UK and across the world.

For over 200 years Moorfields has pioneered research, employed the brightest minds and delivered visionary eye care. We are proud to be considered the world’s leading destination for expert eye treatment, and continue to set standards for the rest of the world to follow.

Being part of the Moorfields heritage provides the reassurance that you will have access to world-class consultant eye specialists who provide treatment and care for private patients with a wide range of eye problems, from common complaints to the most complex eye health conditions that often require treatment not available anywhere else in the world.

This, together with access to our flagship centre offering the latest laser and implantable contact lens treatments for vision correction and consultants specialising in cosmetic eye treatment, enables private patients to access the most comprehensive range of ophthalmic services available in the UK.

Our patients frequently recommend us to their family, friends and colleagues as their preferred provider.

Our financial surplus is re-invested back into Moorfields to support NHS services.

Moorfields Private is rated “outstanding” for surgery services by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The CQC visited the admission suite at Moorfields Private during an inspection of private and NHS services at Moorfields City Road in 2019.

Inspectors commented that the care within surgery services for patients is “innovative” and provides “excellent emotional and practical support to patients.” Staff were praised for their compassionate care and the report highlighted that feedback from patients confirmed that staff were “caring and treated them with kindness.”

Moorfields was awarded an overall rating of good and the CQC highlighted that all of the trust’s services were rated as either good or outstanding.

It was rated outstanding for being effective because patient outcomes in many specialities were better than national and international targets and there was a drive to improve and identify best practice in care and treatment for patients.

Inspectors also recognised Moorfields for being “at the forefront of training, research and innovation in ophthalmology” and cited many examples of outstanding practice, including:

• Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London setting up the London Project to Cure Blindness which restored the sight of the first patients receiving a new treatment derived from stem cell technology.
• Moorfields’ collaborative and pioneering research study with DeepMind Health showing that artificial intelligence helped to diagnose eye diseases.

• We have built an international reputation as a well-respected and trusted provider of high quality private ophthalmic services with referrals for consultation, treatment and tertiary opinion from consultants, general practitioners, medical insurers and embassies across the UK and internationally.

Moorfields Eye Hospital has a rich history of leading developments in eye health since 1804 and has a reputation for innovation. Some of these innovations include:

• First to offer instruction in ophthalmology to doctors in the early 1800’s.
• Obtained Post-Graduate teaching status in 1948.
• First to introduce micro-surgery.
• First to open a community based eye clinic.
• Pioneered the development of refractive (laser eye) surgery.
• One of only 10 National Health Service (NHS) organisations in the UK to be awarded Foundation Trust status in 2004, giving it increased freedom in its strategic decision making.
• Leading the development of OpenEyes, a collaborative effort to create a state-of-the-art electronic patient record.
• One of the few UK Foundation Trusts to run an overseas branch, Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai.
• One of the world’s largest children’s specialist eye centres – The Richard Desmond Children’s Eye Centre.
• Became an Academic Health Science Centre (as a member of University College London Partners) one of less than 50 worldwide, dedicated to promoting the practical application of clinical research.

Moorfields Private is proud to be part of the Moorfields family and provides world class care to private patients from around the world.

We monitor our performance against a range of measures and provide regular reports to the Trust Board. Performance information is also published annually in the Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust annual report and accounts, while progress against quality indicators focusing on patient experience, clinical effectiveness and patient safety is reviewed in our annual quality report. These documents can be downloaded from the corporate publications section of the Trust’s website.

Our performance is also regularly assessed by two external regulators.

Monitor, the independent regulator for NHS Foundation Trusts, assesses Trusts on a quarterly basis for financial and governance risk, and for mandatory services. Trusts are rated as red, amber or green for governance and mandatory risk, and on a scale of one to five for financial risk, where one is the worst, and five the best. Moorfields is currently rated green for governance and mandatory services, and five for financial risk.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator for all health and social care services in England, and has responsibility for licensing providers of such services and for ensuring that they meet a wide range of essential quality and safety standards. Moorfields is currently registered without conditions with the CQC.

Clinical governance is the framework which ensures that organisations are accountable for the services and care they provide.

Our clinical governance clinicians assess and audit the practices of the hospital and spearhead change and development. This ensures that procedures and practices are providing patients with the highest quality of care. All of our nurses are highly experienced and specialist trained in ophthalmology.

How we collect and use your information
Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (‘Moorfields’, ‘us’ or ‘we’) is committed to protecting your privacy. Please read this Privacy Notice to find out how we use your information and what your rights are. This notice applies to personal data provided to us, both by individuals themselves or by third parties. We process your personal information lawfully, fairly and transparently, and only where we have a lawful basis to do so.

As Moorfields Private is the UK-based private patient division of Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, we only provide services to consultants whose NHS practice is based at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

These consultants are employed by Moorfields Eye Hospital in respect of their NHS practice, but with respect to their private practice, they are self-employed practitioners who see and treat patients under the terms of the Moorfields Private Practicing Privileges agreements.

The fees consultants charge to patients for the provision of their own professional services are set by them directly and are entirely separate to those charged to patients for hospital services provided by Moorfields Private.

In October 2014, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published the Private Healthcare Market Investigation Order 2014. This requires private hospitals and providers to publish information about services provided to referring clinicians.

Provision of services to consultants and referrers

Higher value services and direct incentives

A private hospital operator is prohibited from offering any direct incentive to, or creating an obligation on, a referring clinician to give preference to the facilities of that private hospital operator when treating private patients or referring private patients for treatment or tests.

Moorfields Private Eye Hospital and Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust do not offer any such direct incentives.

Consulting rooms, practice manager services, and private staff office space are charged to consultants at market rates.

Lower value services

We provide a number of support services to our consultants and referrers, for which we do not make a charge.

General services provided to ensure clinical safety:

• In-house training courses and events
• For consultants only: operational services such as patient admission, administrative services, and billing. Moorfields Private provides a billing service for some consultants, for which the consultant is charged a small fee
• For consultants only: Moorfields Private does not provide insurance or indemnity to cover for the treatment of private patients. Moorfields Private is part of Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and provides the usual protections for NHS consultants for NHS work.

Basic workplace amenities (for consultants only):

• Tea and coffee is provided to consultants and all staff
• Meals are not subsidised or provided free of charge
• Stationery for the administration for Moorfields Private clinics
• Parking spaces are not available to staff or consultants

General marketing:

• For consultants only: website presence
• For consultants only: inclusion in Moorfields Private consultant directories
• For consultants only: occasional features in editorial content and general marketing opportunities
• For consultants only: speaking opportunities at Moorfields Private education and general marketing events
• Opportunity to participate in or attend general promotional and educational events

General corporate hospitality:

• We do not offer corporate hospitality to consultants or referrers outside of general marketing, promotional or educational events
• Any corporate hospitality as classified under the CMA ruling will be detailed here.

Financial interests

There are no consultants with financial interests in equipment used or services and facilities operated within or at our hospital.

Moorfields Private Eye Hospital and its subsidiaries* are committed to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults including promoting their welfare and protection from abuse and neglect, maintaining good compliance with national safeguarding standards and guidance, and fulfilling its statutory responsibilities as stated in Section 11 of the Children’s Act 1989/2004 and the Care Act (2014).

Safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility and is fundamental to delivering health and wellbeing and core to delivering the quality agenda. The welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults who come into our services, either directly or indirectly, is paramount and all staff have a have a duty to recognise and respond to safeguarding children and/or adult issues and a responsibility to ensure compliance with statutory requirements and that best practice is followed.

A number of safeguarding arrangements are in place including:

• Meeting statutory requirements with regard to the carrying out of Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.
• Safeguarding policies and procedures which are regularly updated.
• A robust safeguarding training programme in place with clearly defined eligibility as recommended by the health intercollegiate documents.
• Safeguarding supervision available to all staff.
• Professionals who lead on issues in relation to child and adult protection and the safeguarding of children, young people and vulnerable adults.
• A process in place for following up children and young people who were not brought to appointments (WNB) to ensure their health is not affected in any way.
• Membership of the Local Safeguarding Partnerships.
• Working within the London Child Protection Procedures (2021) and the London Multi-Agency Adult Safeguarding Policy and Procedures (2019).
• Effective partnership arrangements in place to facilitate working with other agencies.
• Quarterly Safeguarding Committees which provide monitoring, scrutiny and assurance for the Trust Board via the Quality and Safety Committee. Assurance is provided through quarterly reporting and annual safeguarding reports.
• Safeguarding accountability and assurance arrangements in place with evidence of compliance provided to the Safeguarding Partnerships.
• Arrangements in place for dealing with safeguarding allegations against people who work with children, young people and/or vulnerable adults.
• A clear statement in place regarding its commitment to preventing human trafficking and modern slavery in line with Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

*Moorfields Private West End Limited trading as Moorfields Private

Published July 2023