Paediatric Opthalmology Appointment

[MonF93]

Hi, I'm new here wanted some advice maybe, or reassurance even. I wasn't sure what category to fit this into I'll be honest.

The health visitor referred my daughter she's now 13 months old, to opthalmology back in January, as her right eye is a bit lazy.
It's a long wait anyway but we've finally got an appointment through, but it's a telephone consultation, is this common practice now, I expected to be seeing someone so they can look at her.

Any experience in this would be really appreciated 👍
Thanks so much everyone

Do you mean she has a squint?
A squint may be due to an eye being lazy (which means it has poorer sight).

Maybe they are gathering information before she is given an appointment although when my dd was referred she was seen in person.

My dd also had a squint that I noticed when she was around 18 months old. She ended up with glasses as she was long sighted with a lazy left eye. She still has glasses and is now age 19.

A first consultation by telephone?! That's almost as helpful as having no appointment at all. How can they look in her eyes, test her vision (they have a way to do this with toddlers don't they). If I was in your shoes I would phone them and request to be seen or at least to find out whether this is an initial appointment followed by them actually seeing your child.

I'm a carer for my elderly DF and he had a cardiology appointment via telephone. I requested in person, he was the seen and they picked up his heart murmur, swollen ankles and another issue that would not have been spotted with a phone call (which he can't manage anyway as he's deaf).

My 12 month old has been under ophthalmology since he was about 5/6 months old because of a genetic disorder that he has.

We’ve only had two appointments so far, our third was in summer but all two were in person. It could be that it’s a telephone consultation over the phone just to see what the issues are and then they’ll book you in in person?

I’m sure they’d see your DC in clinic at some point so don’t get too worried. When you have the telephone appointment just ask them when you’ll be seen in person

I was sent a letter for a telephone appointment for paediatric opthalmology. I rang them as I thought it would be a waste of time. They changed it to an in person appointment.

Thank you everyone, I'm going to call them in the morning and ask for a face to face appointment 🤞

Will let you all know how that goes, I had it a feeling it was unusual to have a phone appointment for something like this.

I rang them and unfortunately they can't change it to face to face but said the phone call was to triage and then we'll go in for face to face. Hopefully won't be too long of a wait!
Thanks all

My daughter has been sent for years due to her sight. All appointments have been in person.