Service Withdrawal Guidance

Primary Care Optometry Practices must notify Primary Eyecare Services if they are unable to, or no longer wish to, continue providing a commissioned service. 

A practice may need to withdraw from a service for various reasons, including: 

• the only accredited optometrist has left the practice
• the only accredited optometrist is on annual leave
• the practice is unable to meet the service specification requirements
• the practice no longer wishes to participate in the service 

Timely notification helps ensure continuity of care for patients and allows Primary Eyecare Services to manage service coverage effectively across the region. It also ensures that referral pathways are updated and that practices are not contacted unnecessarily. 

Withdrawing from a service on the IT Platform 

If your practice needs to withdraw from a service, you can do so directly via the IT platform by following these steps:

1. Log in to the IT Platform, OPERA. 

2. Navigate to My Services 

• Click on the General tab
• Select 'My Services'

3. Review your services: 

On the My Services page, you can view: 

• All services your practice is eligible to deliver. 
• Services currently being delivered.
• The optometrists eligible to provide each service.

4. Understand the colour-coded symbols 

Services are marked with colour-coded symbols:

• Green tick - The service is currently being delivered.
• Amber tick - Service delivery has been requested.
• Red cross - Service is not being delivered.

5. Request Withdrawal:

• Select the relevant service from the list on the left-hand side of the page. Please refer to the image above.
• Click Request to withdraw.

6. Confirm your request:

• A pop-up will appear asking for confirmation.
• Confirm to proceed

7. Await acknowledgement:

• Your request will be sent to the Primary Eyecare Services (PES) Operations Team.
• Once acknowledged, your practice will be officially withdrawn from the service.

Rejoining a service 

If your practice wishes to provide the service again at a later date, you will need to submit a new request to deliver the service.

Further guidance on how to do this is available on the 'My Services Checking, Adding and Removing Services' help page.

Further support 

If you require any assistance with withdrawing from a service, please contact the team via email at hello@referral.support or via the IT Platform blue bubble chat feature.