We caught up with Sejal Mistry, optometrist and clinical service improvement manager, department of digital medicine, who has been working at Moorfields for seven years.
Sejal is Indian, born and raised in the UK and spoke with us as part of our Moorfields South Asian Heritage Month celebration.
South Asian Heritage Month is a time to celebrate diversity and culture, to take pride in the unique history and traditions, and to appreciate both the struggles and the contributions of people from South Asian descent. Despite not growing up in South Asia, I am proud to be celebrating this month and can reflect on how my background has shaped the person I am today!
Who would you like to give a shout out to (team or individual) and why? Do you have any examples? How has this team/ individual impacted you?
During South Asian Heritage Month, I'd like to give a shout-out to the South Asian role models who I see in the optometry department and other teams at Moorfields.
Representation matters, and it is lovely to see people who look like me or share similar cultural backgrounds making waves and setting examples as excellent leaders.
I'd also like to give a special shout out to Rashmi Mathew, consultant ophthalmologist. She has always highlighted the importance of being true to yourself and taking actions with kindness and compassion and is an inspiration to myself and many others.
Working together means we collaborate with one another, with our patients and with other organisations. Can you give an example of a collaborative way you work?
In the Single Point of Access service there are new platforms and ways of working collaboratively with GPs, community optometrists, other hospital eye services, eye charities such as RNIB, NHS England, and the independent sector. We also try to use principles of coproduction to collaborate with patients and make improvements, like the language that we use when sending correspondence. Through the SPoA, I am also fortunate to be working closely with the medical retina team to introduce an advice and guidance channel which helps to increase the communication between eye care professionals and allow primary and secondary care clinicians to better work together for the benefit of patients.
It is always nice to be able to connect people from different roles where interests overlap, leading to a more productive and efficient way of working.
Can you share an example of innovation in your role or area that has stemmed from yourself or your team? Please could you also share what impact this has made?
I love innovation and think that it is something that is so important for improving healthcare. One of my Moorfields highlights was hosting the QIPP awards last year - this is an annual award which involves clinicians innovating within their departments or clinics. It really showed how ideas and changes made at a local level can have fantastic impacts on patients and the health service and it is inspiring to see how much innovation goes on at Moorfields.
Other than QIPPs, working in the department of digital medicine has opened my eyes to all sorts of cool innovations, such as new technologies and pathways. In my role as a clinical service improvement manager, I work with an excellent team innovating through the introduction of a Single Point of Access (SPoA) referral service. The aim of this is to use digital services to streamline all ophthalmology referrals in North Central and North East London from primary care to any secondary or tertiary ophthalmology service. The service has processed almost 20,000 referrals in the one year since starting. We have also been able to introduce first-pass triaging, educational training, and feedback loops, among many other benefits!
Kindness is one of our values. What does this mean to you and how do you strive for it in your everyday working life? Can you give an example of how you have been kind?
Maya Angelou said: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Kindness is therefore something we should all strive for, when talking to patients, to each other, and to ourselves.