Index - May

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This month our report focus is on the financial factors of practice management and we make comparisons between the turnover per eye examination and the dispensing rate by practice turnover size.

Last month Optician Index reported an increase in total practice turnover to 175 Index points, which was the highest value since November 2008, but the adjusted figure (after late submissions are included) is 173 Index points, which is slightly lower than the previous month. Figure 1, shows this benchmark from January 2011 and the steady increase from December 2012 to the current peak at 178 Index points, up 5 per cent from last month and 6 per cent from this month last year. However, poor performance during the summer months of last year caused the moving average, which takes into account historic values, to fall and annual growth remains marginally negative at less than 0.5 per cent. The positive performance at the start of this year has reversed the fall in the moving average and the linear trend-line, which takes into account only the values included in the chart and no historic data, shows a slight upward trend.