UK optometrist launches AI clinical workspace for everyday practice

UK optometrist launches AI clinical workspace

A practising optometrist has created Iris Clinical, a UK-focused AI workspace designed to support optometrists with sourced answers, referral writing and pre-reg revision.

A practising UK optometrist has launched Iris Clinical, an AI clinical workspace created specifically for UK optometrists and those in their pre-registration year.

Unlike general AI tools, which can sometimes give answers shaped by international or US-based information, Iris Clinical has been built around UK practice. It draws on NICE guidance, College of Optometrists clinical management principles, DVLA visual standards and NHS referral pathways, and shows the source behind each answer so clinicians can check the information for themselves.

The platform brings several practical tools into one place, including a clinical assistant, referral-letter support, patient explanations, record-note drafting and revision features mapped to the pre-registration training year.

Iris Clinical has been built single-handedly by Yusuf Patel, a practising UK locum optometrist, while working around clinical shifts.

“I built Iris Clinical because I kept reaching for AI between patients and getting answers that didn’t quite fit how we work in the UK,” said Patel. “I wanted a tool that actually knows our guidance and shows its working. Something you’d trust with a referral, not just a chat.”

Clinical governance is also a central part of the product. Iris Clinical is ICO-registered, hosted in the EU under UK GDPR, processes no patient-identifiable data, and is led by a named, GOC-registered clinician.

Iris Clinical is live now, with a free trial available at irisclinical.co.uk.

About Iris Clinical Iris Clinical is an AI clinical workspace for UK optometrists and pre-registration trainees, built by a practising UK optometrist. It provides UK-specific, source-cited clinical support, referral-letter generation and pre-reg revision tools, with clinical governance and UK data protection at its core. Learn more at irisclinical.co.uk.