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So, once again I am expected to work for another year within the NHS and further subsidise this government's coffers. Yet again I am told that the OFRC fought hard for a fair increase and achieved nothing. When will we wake up and accept that the Department of Health has always seen us as a soft touch?

I keep reading that we are creating good relationships with the government and that we are making progress on matters like fees. For goodness sake, it is clear that, as ever, we are just being laughed at by the Department. I wonder if, when our negotiators leave the room, anyone stays by the door and listens to the hysterical laughter that must break out in the room after they have gone?

It is about time we stopped fooling ourselves and accepted that the Department is prepared to rip us off for every penny they can for as long as they can. For years we have whinged among ourselves about the derisory fee increases while doing nothing. I hope that, as a profession, we can at last view this year's imposition of an insulting fee increase as the last straw and finally unite to show the government that we cannot and will not provide NHS services at a loss.

If we carry on with this iniquitous cross subsidy we are complicit with the government's desire to further tax our patients indirectly. People are going blind on a daily basis because they will not have regular eye tests because of the cost of glasses. This has been shown in recent studies. This is a scandal and it is being perpetuated by this miserly fee increase and by our continued compliance.

It is always said that if some pull out of the NHS the corporate sector will merely sweep up the patients and carry on. Is this really the case? Would they want to be seen to be so complicit with this wanton destruction of the NHS eye care service? I think not.

I seriously hope that the corporate sector will lead the way in beginning to move away from the NHS unless we are given the chance to do our job properly. The Prime Minister can boast about how good his eyesight is due to the NHS but he and his colleagues seem determined not to let the rest of the population share in his good fortune.

I think it is well past time we as a profession stood up to the Prime Minister and his gang of bullies and taught him a lesson or two. The profession must unite on this or we will continue with our cross subsidy, maintain high spectacle prices, allow others to come in and charge cheaper prices and we will be left with no viable way to offer clinical services and we all know where that will lead for our patients. ●

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