The North Central London (NCL) Single Point of Access (SPoA) service, hosted at Moorfields Eye Hospital, has changed its name to Sparc to reflect its wide range of services.
The service was first established in 2024 in NCL, where previously, referral pathways were fragmented and often, optometrists were referring via GPs.
Local optometrists were enabled to refer directly through the SPoA, which routes them to the patient's preferred hospital for triage and management. This pathway improves referral processing, patient safety, and reduces patient journey time from point of referral to hospital appointment, as well as burden on GPs. It ensures that referrals get to a suitable ophthalmology provider as quickly as possible, factoring in patient journey, patient preference and availability.
“The referral process is the bridge between primary and secondary care,” said Peter Thomas, director of digital development at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. “Just as it’s the first step for a patient accessing hospital care, we’ve seen it as the first step to make improvements across the entire pathway to improve the patient experience, and strengthen the relationship between all professionals and organisations delivering eye care to our patients.”
Sparc goes beyond the traditional SPoA, facilitating service innovations all along the referral pathway to improve access to hospital resources, including: centralised triaging, launching an Advice and Refer service, engaging with our referring optometrists through regular CPD-accredited education sessions, dynamic digital modelling, and embedding patient choice by offering a selection of local providers to patients when booking appointments. This is designed to optimise patient care, enhance provider efficiency, and create a more connected healthcare system.
Named initially for single point of access for referral and coordination, Sparc is more than a referral service; it is a transformative digital service platform that connects optometrists, GPs and specialists under one system. Sparc ensures ensure timely, accurate triage, reducing waiting times and improving clinical outcomes.
Though the name has changed, there are no changes to Sparc’s services. Referral email addresses, contact details and process remains the same.
4 November 2025