Welcome to Friends of Bristol Eye Hospital

Treatment for all patients has been greatly enhanced by our supporters.

For every £1 raised, we spend 96p supporting the hospital, 2p running the charity and 2p on publicity or raising funds.

Become a Friend

Join us for just £5 a year or support us in other ways.

Make a donation

You can donate in many ways, including cash, cheques, BACS, debit or credit card.

Read our newsletters

Please have a look at recent editions of our In Sight newsletter.

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grants made
To contact us, we recommend that you telephone or email (details in Contact).  We all work from home and post sent via the hospital can be delayed.  If you need to post anything, please call or email and we will give you a home address. Thank you.
If you plan to visit an NHS hospital in Bristol or Weston, please see:

A kind message

We received this message from Stephen Rhodes yesterday:

“My wife had cause to visit you for the second time in an emergency having sustained her second detached retina in 18 months.  Thanks to your excellent service and fantastic prompt response, she has made a full recovery and feels that her eyesight has gone back to how it was before the retina detached.  Not only have you repaired two detached retinas for her, you have dealt with the cataracts in each eye as well.  People are only too quick to complain about some of the care they receive through the NHS but without your prompt action and the skilled doctors and nurses who looked after her, she would be blind.  I cannot thank you enough for everything you have done.”

Thank you Stephen; we have forwarded your very kind message to the hospital manager who has shared it with the staff concerned.

The picture is one of the brickwork mural panels at the hospital, recently deep cleaned with assistance from the Friends.

17 November 2023

Cataract Surgery Training

BEH organised a training event in complicated and complex cataract surgery for 16 ophthalmology trainees on 29 September.

The Friends paid for surgical consumables used during the simulation training day.  Gemma Manasseh said “the trainees are now more confident in managing complex and complicated cataract surgery.  We are very grateful for your contribution to this training day.  Without it the day could not have gone ahead.

This grant cost £2,072.

26 October 2023
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Our new Secretary

Carole Brooke was elected as our fourth Secretary in September 2023.

Having been treated at the Bristol Eye Hospital for the past two years (and still ongoing), Carole became a trustee in May 2023.

“Becoming a Trustee seemed fitting to give a little back to the staff who use their skills and expertise to benefit so many people.  It wasn’t a difficult decision and taking on the role of Secretary will also support the Friends in their excellent work.”

At other times, Carole can be found hacking at a golf ball at Long Ashton Golf Club, playing with her three grandchildren or helping to run a community health service called The Nailsea Leg Club!  She likes to keep busy!

Before retiring, Carole was a GP Practice Manager, firstly in Shirehampton and then in her home town of Nailsea.

25 October 2023

Our new Chairman

Kay McCluskey was elected as the Friends’ ninth Chairman in May 2023.  As a grateful patient of the Eye Hospital, Kay became a trustee of the Friends in January 2016.  She chairs our Events sub-committee and is also on our Finance and Governance sub-committees.
Kay is a Personal Injuries Consultant with Enable Law – one of the UK’s leading specialist medical negligence, personal injury and mental capacity law firms.  Working for over 40 years in the field of personal injury claims, she is proud to have been recognised by Chambers as being in the top tier of personal injury lawyers in Bristol and the South West.

She is also a member of the Board of Headway Bristol and a member and former President of the Bristol Medico-Legal Society.

24 October 2023

Kitchen Equipment for Eye Hospital staff in Weston General Hospital

We have bought kitchen equipment – a refrigerator, a toaster and a sandwich maker – for BEH staff in Weston General.

Following the merger of the Bristol and Weston sites, the team at Weston is a core part of the BEH ophthalmology service and the Friends are delighted to purchase these items to improve the quality of the staff rest/break area.

The staff sent a lovely card thanking us.

This grant cost £289.

24 October 2023

New Optical Coherence Tonometer in Emergency Department

We have bought a Topcon OCT-1 Maestro 2 for the BEH Emergency Department.

The number of patients seen in BEH ED increases year on year.  Without an Optical Coherence Tonometer (OCT) within the Department, patients at the weekend had to return for basic OCT imaging during the week causing delays and extra workload for staff in Outpatients and the Imaging Departments – which were already fully booked.  Moreover, patients had to be escorted to Level 2 or Outpatients Ground floor, adding considerable time for patients and wasting staff time escorting people.

Each OCT imaging session should now take about ten minutes, rather than an hour or more – a huge benefit for staff and patients.

The Royal College of Ophthalmologists recommend that all Eye Emergency Departments should have access to an OCT device for patient care.

This grant cost £32,000 (plus a further £6,300 expected for maintenance contracts over the next five years).

23 October 2023

Christmas Cards on sale now in BEH

Designs available can be seen at the booking-in desk on the ground floor or via the button below.

Each pack costs £3 (regardless of any price shown on the pack).  Packs contain ten cards of the same design plus envelopes.

Cards can be purchased from the booking-in desk or the main reception desk near the main entrance doors.  Sales are open between 8am and 5pm.

You can pay by credit or debit card.  You can also pay by cash but staff will not be able to give you any change (and we receive the excess as a donation).

20 October 2023
Christmas Card Designs 2023

“PLEASE LOOK INSIDE”

Our promotional leaflet “PLEASE LOOK INSIDE” is on display in the hospital.  The leaflet briefly describes what we do, with some examples of grants we’ve made.  It also encourages people to join us, setting out different ways of donating and how to request information.

PLEASE LOOK INSIDE leaflet

The leaflet also contains a loose stand-alone form to join or donate to the Friends.

Donation Form
9 November 2022, updated 20 October 2023

“Hyperlegible” website typeface

We use the Atkinson Hyperlegible typeface on this website, our newsletter In Sight and other new leaflets.

The typeface was developed for the Braille Institute of America.  It is named after the Braille Institute founder J. Robert Atkinson.

For the benefit of visually impaired readers, it aims to ensure that individual characters cannot be confused with one another, ultimately improving readability. Also, the shaping of the letters is exaggerated to provide better clarity and the open areas of certain letters are expanded to provide greater distinction.

The Braille Institute has made the typeface free for anyone to use.

16 March 2022, updated 13 October 2023

Our new typeface makes it easier to distinguish characters that are commonly confused.

Wonderful service

DONATE BY BANK TRANSFER.  We incur no charges for donations made by Open Banking transfer using Wonderful Payments, or by BACS.

DONATE BY CARD.  Operated by Donorbox.

DONATE BY OTHER METHODS, eg Cheque, Cash or Text.

You can Gift Aid your donation or, if you wish to become a member of the Friends, request correspondence from us or let us know of any particular reason why you are donating, perhaps in thanks for treatment or in memory of someone, you can do all these:

  • online if donating by card or
  • by completing a donation form, which you can download or pick up in the hospital.
16 July 2021, updated 8 September 2022

From our archives

A young patient admires the inmates of the aquarium purchased by the Friends in 2011 in the then-new children’s unit in the Outpatient Department on Level 1.  The aquarium has been maintained by the Friends ever since and remains very popular with children.