Dispensing Optician of the Year sponsored by Asda Opticians
Winner: Martyn Howlett, SeeAbility
Finalists:
• Susan Edwards, Martin Smith Opticians
• Daniel Jackson, the Spec Shop University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire
• Emma Robinson, Specsavers, Wellingborough
SeeAbility’s Martyn Howlett took home the Optician Award for Dispensing Optician of the Year 2024 in recognition of his dedication to improving the lives of children with learning disabilities.
Howlett is a senior dispensing optician leading a team of dispensing opticians (DOs) for the Special Schools Eye Care Service that provides care to 35 schools across London, in partnership with optometrists and school staff.
He has been a prominent force in SeeAbility’s Framework for Special Schools Eye Care programme since 2019, while its first clinical programme began in 2013 with seven schools.
Research shows that, without an in-school eye care service, nearly half of special school students would have received no eye care, despite 50% having a significant problem with their eyes and around 37% needing glasses, explains Howlett.
Twelve years later, with extensive research and advocacy from SeeAbility, alongside collaboration and support from eye care professional bodies and NHS England, their efforts resulted in a final NHS national rollout to 83 UK special schools in 2021. The charity taking on the contract to expand to 31 schools in London.
Judges said Howlett’s entry put a smile on their faces, seeing the valuable work he has achieved, adding that coordinating on the rolling out of the national programme must ‘have been no easy task’.
Specialist care
Howlett was delighted upon winning the award as it brings attention to the high level of eye care need that children with learning disabilities experience and the unique position DOs are in to support them.
‘I see children every day who have previously missed out on the spectacles they need, leaving them functionally visually impaired, either because no one thought they might need glasses, or no one believed they would be able to tolerate them, but they are now proudly wearing them,’ he says.
Treating disabled children requires its own specialist skillset, involving creativity and empathy to understand what will work best for each child. Howlett and his team have adapted to many challenges when fitting glasses, contending with other health difficulties, increased risk of accommodative insufficiency and mobility challenges with limited head control, which may require communication through eye gaze or screen-based communication technology.
‘Children in special schools may often have tactile sensory issues and visual processing challenges, so don’t like anything near their face and take longer to process information ... and are going to take longer to adapt to a totally new view of the world,’ he says, emphasising that the first fit is just the start and being proactive with follow-up appointments is key.
‘We are familiar faces around school so breakages or losses – which for some children can be recurrent because of their disabilities – can be addressed without time out of school (and work for parents),’ he adds.
Treating children in the familiar environment of schools makes assessments more successful, says Howlett, adding that the optometrist provides their results in easy-to-understand terms. For example, if they have reduced acuities, they will share the font sizes they can manage.
Howlett shares methods for helping children adapt to new glasses, with teaching staff support, including wearing the glasses before a favourite activity; firstly giving them ‘empty’ frames to desensitise them to the idea of something on their face; and giving a child’s opposite prescription in a ‘flipper’ to demonstrate to teaching staff how they see the world without glasses.
The team has also learnt that sensory-motor integration is vital for quicker adaption and advises getting children on the trampoline or being out and about with the new spectacles.
Advocacy and mentoring
In the awards entry, SeeAbility outlined how he advocated for the role of dispensing opticians nationally and as a lead in its mentor-based training programme.
‘I have had the privilege to mentor a significant number of clinicians in the north-east and north-west of England, as well as SeeAbility clinicians in London as part of the NHSE funded compulsory training... developing a community of specialist clinicians in each region,’ he said.
Howlett continues to campaign for increased DO services in special schools. He remains positive, highlighting new government service plans and regulations for all special schools in October 2024, with £12m funding for 2024-25.
‘If we had services in all schools, issues would be reduced significantly as children would be getting their glasses at a time when adaptation is so much easier. We will keep campaigning to ensure the critical importance of the specialist skills of dispensing opticians is acknowledged for people with learning disabilities and all vulnerable patients.’
