Story originally posted on 14 December 2009.

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust has won recognition at two national awards for outstanding work treating wet age-related macular disease (wet ARMD).

The Ophthalmology Team's project, Saving Sight the NICE Way, was designed to provide easy access to Lucentis for patients with wet ARMD.

The scheme found its first success in November at the annual Health Service Journal awards in London, as it was highly commended in the Delivering Quality and Value with NICE Guidance category.

It did even better at the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) Shared Learning awards.in December, after consultant ophthalmologists Marie Tsaloumas and Helen Palmer presented the project at the NICE conference in Manchester.

The subsequent audience vote saw UHB's project emerge as the winner of the clinical category.

The Shared Learning Awards were established to celebrate the best examples of implementing NICE guidance, with a shortlist chosen from the submissions to the NICE Shared Learning Database. Shortlisted candidates are then given a platform to present their work to their peers at the annual NICE conference.

UHB's presentation described planning and development of the Lucentis service in anticipation of the impending NICE guidance in August 2008, subsequent rapid implementation of the guidance and the benefits it has since delivered to the patients.

No patient is waiting more than one week from the receipt of the referral to the initial assessment and, since the commencement of the service, no actively treated patients have been registered blind.

In addition to the national recognition and professional satisfaction of winning an award, the team has been rewarded with a £1,000 cheque from the NICE to support future implementation projects in Ophthalmology.

Inese Edgcumbe, Group Manager for Opthalmology, said: "It is very pleasing to see the team receive well-deserved recognition for their dedication to deliver a gold standard service to our patients and to see their work showcased as the best practice."