Mr Shabbir Mohamed

Shabbir Mohamed is a consultant ophthalmic surgeon based at the University Hospital Birmingham (UHB) NHS Foundation Trust. UHB is a large flagship government hospital and a tertiary referral centre. His NHS practice is based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital site within the UHB network of hospital sites. He is the most senior consultant specialising in glaucoma treatment at UHB.

He graduated with an honours degree (awarded to the top 10% of graduates) from the Victoria University of Manchester, UK in 1996. He has been working as an ophthalmologist since 1997. He is a Fellow of both The Royal College of Ophthalmologist (London) and The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

He has been working as a consultant ophthalmologist at tertiary referral centres in the UK since August 2006. His postgraduate training has been undertaken in the largest training rotation in the United Kingdom and he has undertaken advanced training in the fields of glaucoma and corneal and external disease management.

He currently provides a general ophthalmic service, cataract surgery service as well as an adult glaucoma service at UHB. He is the senior glaucoma surgeon at UHB. He utilises his training in anterior segment to treat patients with these frequently co-existing diseases and is recognised as an expert in the field of ocular surface disease in patients with glaucoma having published landmark papers in this field.

He has been instrumental in developing the ophthalmic unit at UHB to provide a more comprehensive glaucoma service by developing medical, laser and surgical treatments as well as by acquiring appropriate resources for the facility. Since joining the unit, he has modernised the care delivery by developing an evidence based one stop glaucoma assessment facility to identify patients with this potential blinding disease early to maximise patient outcomes. He has enabled the availability of latest medical treatments for patients and has led the development of the surgical glaucoma service to deliver excellent audited outcomes in both Minimally Invasive Glaucoma Surgery (MIGS) as well as Trabeculectomy surgery. In addition, he has developed a diode laser service as well as the delivery of selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) at the unit for the benefit of glaucoma patients at UHB.

He is involved in the provision of private ophthalmic care to a wide variety of patients through his practice in Birmingham. Patients attend his practice for treatment from all over the world. Please visit www.smohamed.co.uk for further details about his private practice and for patient testimonials.

He has published high impact papers in peer-reviewed journals and has presented award winning posters in the field of glaucoma and anterior segment on a regular basis throughout his career. He was invited to write a book chapter for the benefit of optometry students in the most popular optometry textbook that is widely read. His active research interests are in the field of glaucoma and ocular surface disease and the manifestations and interactions of these blinding diseases. He has managed patients with severe glaucoma and ocular surface disease and developed novel understanding of management strategies to help in this difficult setting.

He has been the co-chair of the glaucoma innovation group at UHB consisting of a multidisciplinary team of healthcare practitioners whose remit is to develop the glaucoma service locally. Through this vehicle, it has been possible to continually develop the glaucoma service by updating equipment, ensuring appropriate staffing of clinics, expanding the glaucoma workforce, developing a novel insourcing pathway to enable the safe involvement of outside providers and creating a forum for generating novel and innovative approaches to tackling the considerable workload.

He has held the position of clinical governance lead for Ophthalmology at UHB in the past. He was invited to take up this role by his colleagues due to his deep interest in patient safety and his high moral standards. He was instrumental in raising awareness of the systemic issues that increased risk to patients and worked collaboratively to facilitate extra resources (staff, equipment, facility, co-operation with external providers and improved pathways and training as well as risk stratification) to address these risks.

He delivered a novel community ophthalmic facility between 2008 and 2017 which was a high quality consultant delivered service that linked to secondary care seamlessly. This was well received by patients, commissioners as well as the trust and the service consistently gained high patient satisfaction scores.

He was appointed as The Royal College of Ophthalmologists college tutor at UHB during the period of April 2015 – June 2016. This role involves the supervision of trainers and planning of training for junior ophthalmologists within the department at UHB. In this role, he was commended for “reinvigorating the training being delivered” in the unit by the local school of ophthalmology inspection in 2015. He was also involved in developing the curriculum for medical ophthalmology trainees – a novel role within the West Midlands training rotation.

He has been involved in providing medico-legal opinions for the claimant as well as the defence since 2010. He is familiar with the relevant legislation and in particular the requirements set out in Part 35 of the Civil Procedure Rules and the accompanying Practice Direction, the Guidance for the instruction of experts in civil claims 2014 and the relevant Pre- action Practice Direction/Protocols. He can provide rapid turnaround of reports and can arrange full ophthalmic examination as required. His areas of expertise in providing medico-legal reports are general Ophthalmology, adult Glaucoma of all types and Cataract surgery cases.

He has developed novel care pathways by engaging members with diverse interests both clinical and non-clinical. He also works well within a team and works hard to help the team achieve goals. He can give advice and take responsibility to deliver common targets and can motivate and inspire people to work at their maximum potential abilities to achieve common aims. He has demonstrated flexibility by fitting into an already established team to deliver a better level of care for his patients and to create a more efficient working environment.

He ensures that he keeps his skills up to date and makes the delivery of excellent patient care the primary objective but also ensures that this is achieved with a caring and empathic attitude. This has been shown through positive feedback from patients through patient satisfaction surveys and, through recommendations, he has expanded his patient pool in a very short time.

He has identified issues in systems that have led to adverse clinical outcomes and has worked to address these to reduce patient harm. This has led to significant improvements in the level of care that the organisation is able to deliver.

He prospectively audits his surgical workload and the results demonstrate that he achieves outcomes which are better that the published national audits in trabeculectomy and cataract surgery. He takes part in the national ophthalmology database cataract surgery audit which can be accessed via https://www.nodaudit.org.uk/. This has shown that he is able to achieve excellent outcomes despite the complex workload of a tertiary referral setting. He has regular lecturing commitments to junior doctors, general practitioners as well as commissioners of his service. He is also a regularly invited speaker at local, regional and national meetings.

He has been involved in clinical and academic teaching of medical students from Birmingham University for many years and has overseen several medical student projects. In 2014-2015, he was also identified as a “highly commended” teacher for clinical medical students by fourth year medical students attached to UHB.

He is involved in postgraduate training of ophthalmologists in the West Midlands rotation as well as training allied medical professionals and general practitioners. He continues to mentor junior doctors to publish their works and is well respected by the local junior doctors for many of whom he is their primary mentor.

His over-riding philosophy is that caring for patients to try to ease suffering is a great privilege. He is fortunate to be in a position of privilege in this sense and is keen to meet the needs, hopes and aspirations of his patients.

Away from work, he enjoys philosophy, playing five a side football as well as Badminton. Reading and active participation in the local community as well as commitments to a global charity occupy the rest of his time. However, the most enjoyable time is spent with his family.