Louise McKeag is the director of Louise McKeag Opticians, located near Coleraine's town centre – an area known as ‘the Diamond’ and which is home to a cluster of optometric practices. She says: ‘We have a super quality of life with good infrastructure and sense of community. There is however a wide disparity in social terms in Coleraine. Some very wealthy people choose to retire here and enjoy the golf on the coast but unfortunately there is also great unemployment and social deprivation.
‘In such a small community we need to be equipped to help everyone. Working in Coleraine compared to other parts can bring extra responsibility as we are geographically far from any emergency eye services. The advantage of the proximity to the university would be the low vision clinic. The main challenge is the competition. There are a lot of opticians in the area which creates a lot of commercial pressures,’ says McKeag.
One of these competitors is the largest Specsavers store in Northern Ireland equipped with five test rooms. Optometrist and director, Judith Ball says: ‘Our customers tend to be quite fashion-focused. It’s a university town and we see a fair number of students. It’s a beautiful part of the world, so it attracts a lot of retired people but we also see many families and have found that the brands go down well, particularly Max&Co, Tommy Hilfiger and now Gant.’
The optometry course at the Ulster university began two decades ago. Ball adds: ‘There had been a trend locally of students going ‘across the water’ to do their pre-registration year and there is always the risk that they don’t come back, so all the Specsavers stores in Northern Ireland have been working together to attract the pre-regs and to encourage them to stay after registration.’
Proximity with the campus is also benefitting the career progression of local staff and practice with practitioners feeling service is limited by the shared care schemes set up in the area. ‘At the moment the only enhanced services contract locally is for referral refinement for glaucoma but we are keen to do much more.’ says Ball.
The director of Holley Optometrists, Martin Holley (pictured, left) says: ‘In my experience, attracting optometric professionals to Coleraine after they have completed their registration has never been the issue.
'The proximity of University of Ulster benefits both patients and independent practice. We have links to research projects based there and input to students, prior to and during their pre-registration training.’
From the store, Holley says: ‘Current trends in frames include Face à Face and Etnia Barcelona collections, with interesting colour tones and individualistic design features. Quality rimless frames like Silhouette and Tag Heuer are very popular. While, well-known brands like Ra-Ban, Oakley and Jimmy Choo are dispensed on a daily basis.
Balancing clinical and commercial objectives constantly focuses attention. Providing eyecare in Coleraine is not particularly different to working in other parts of Northern Ireland - we all want to see shared care schemes develop in ways that benefit the patient and see our professional skills more fully utilised.’
Who’s in town
Total: 5
Independents: 4
Multiples: 1
Average costs
Prices for an eye examination range from £20 to £30. The average cost is £25.
Population
The total number of residents in Coleraine itself is about 56,900, while the Causeway Coast and Glens district council was 141,699 (2011 Census)
Community eye care
According to the Optometry Northern Ireland, a contract for glaucoma referral refinement has been secured for the Coleraine area.
Health and affluence
- The average house price in Coleraine is £147,108 (NI Quarterly House Price Index), compared with an average of £117,524 for Northern Ireland, and £189,901 for England and Wales (Land Registry, 2016)
- NHS expenditure on vision problems per person is £82, compared with the NI average of £79: £89 per person in England and Wales (RNIB Sight Loss Data Tool 2015)
- 5,610 patients live in the Causeway Coast and Glens district with Drusen related early stage AMD, 830 with wet AMD, 400 with dry AMD (RNIB).
- 1,300 council resdients live with cataracts, 1,150 with glaucoma and 8,810 suffer from with diabetes, 260 have diabetic retinopathy (RNIB).
Giants Causeway
Fun facts
- Coleraine born physicist, Sir Thomas Ranken pioneered X-ray technology in Australia.
- Last year Coleraine’s Eoghan Rua became the first Derry based hurling club to win the Ulster Club JHC title.
- The earliest known human settlement in Ireland was thought to be 2km from Coleraine.
- TV and film actor, and presenter James Nesbitt OBE grew up in the Coleraine.
- The Giants Causeway (pictured above), an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, is a short drive away on the coast.
