Week of Fun launches interactive website and new cartoon book at Moorfields

Moorfields Eye Hospital launches two new innovative tools for children and young people to promote eye health and understanding about different treatments for eye conditions this week.
 
During a week of fun-packed events for patients at its award-winning children’s eye centre (from Monday November 28 until Thursday December 1), Moorfields will unveil its interactive new website for all children – ‘Eyesite.nhs.uk’  - and a new cartoon book on childhood glaucoma.
Patients attending the centre will be joined during the ‘Open Week’ by staff from the Science Museum, the Lotto Lab, and the Centre of the Cell and the Natural History Museum to learn about eyes in a fun way. They will also be able to meet some real-life scientists from the National Institute for Health Research biomedical research centre for ophthalmology, which is based at Moorfields and the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology. 
  
“It’s no fun coming to hospital when you’re an adult, never mind a child, so we thought we’d give our visitors a bit of a treat for a week and let them know about our fantastic new website which promotes awareness of healthy eyes, eye conditions and diseases in an entertaining way all at the same time,” says Moorfields consultant and children’s services lead Alison Davis.
 
Drawing on its specialist expertise, the paediatric information group at Moorfields has developed ‘Eyesite.nhs.uk’ to promote information about how the eye works, how things can go wrong and what can be done to help, in an entertaining way for children and young people (not only patients) interested in eye issues.

The site has been designed to appeal to three main age groups: 3-5 years, 5-11 years and teens (12 years +).  It has several special features including an animated eye, a virtual children's eye hospital, games jokes and other fun interactive features. To view the new website, please visit www.eyesite.nhs.uk.

Medizkiz will also launch their first cartoon book on eyes. Developed with staff from Moorfields, the book sees five superheroes take Scott on a journey to the planet ‘Mediland’ – shaped like a human body – to explain what happens in glaucoma and how doctors treat it.    

For photo and broadcast opportunities during the children’s centre open week, please contact the press office in the first instance.   
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Notes to editors

• For further information, please contact Julia Jones, PR and Communications manager, on 020 7566 2628 or julia.jones@moorfields.nhs.uk
• The new website and open week have been generously funded by a charitable grant from the Special Trustees of Moorfields Eye Hospital.  To find out more about charitable activity at Moorfields, please visit www.moorfields.nhs.uk/eyecharity.
• Moorfields is one of the world’s leading eye hospitals, providing expertise in clinical care, research and education. We have provided excellence in eye care for more than 200 years and we continue to be at the forefront of new breakthroughs and developments.  We are an integral part of one of the UK’s first academic health science centres, UCL Partners, and were one of the first NHS organisations to achieve foundation trust status in 2004.
• We treat the entire range of eye diseases, from common complaints to rare conditions which require treatments not available anywhere else in the UK. We dealt with more than 450,000 patient visits in 2010/11 at our main hospital base in London’s City Road and at 19 other sites in and around the capital, enabling us to provide expert care closer to patients’ homes.
• With our research partners at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, we run one of the largest ophthalmic research programmes in the world and have the highest measure of scientific productivity and impact in the world for our research activity.
• For further information, please visit www.moorfields.nhs.uk.