A government review into private healthcare providers has resulted in calls for tax revisions and wider use of the NHS logo that could potentially boost optical practices.
Healthcare regulator Monitor has been asked to examine whether there are matters that mean not all NHS-funded healthcare providers operate on an equal footing.
The 'Fair Playing Field' review, part of the wider Health and Social Care Act roll-out, has tackled issues including VAT, corporation tax, payment systems, teaching and insurance.
An unnamed source told the Daily Telegraph the draft proposals were 'sympathetic to the concerns of the private firms'.
A spokesperson for Monitor initially said nothing would be announced until March when the Secretary of State was due to respond to the review's findings in Parliament. However, after media speculation mounted, Monitor said it would not be recommending private sector providers should be exempt from paying corporation tax.
Accountant Marc Bennett of AEL Partners said: 'It is arguable that as the sight test income fails to cover the high costs of rent, ophthalmic opticians and investment in expensive equipment, the provision of sight tests should attract corporation tax relief anyway as an incentive for practices to continue to provide this valuable front line service.
'Indeed private practices save the NHS many millions of pounds by employing optometrists and reducing the need for the NHS to invest in expensive equipment such as fundus cameras and OCT.'
In the Optical Confederation's response to Monitor's review last month it raised a number of other imbalances in the current commissioning framework, including community optical practices not being able to use the NHS logo despite years of requesting to.
'There is little doubt that the NHS logo has a value and is a very strong brand. However, more importantly it sends a very clear signal to patients of where they can access services commissioned by the NHS.
'We believe the latter to be most important and have been arguing for use of the logo since this was introduced for our sister profession - dentistry - in 2004,' the Confederation statement said.