Re-regulation is the real issue

I am convinced that J Plenty (Letters, March 5) has spoken for the overwhelming majority of qualified dispensing opticians who see the push for compulsory CET and ask themselves 'why?' Putting aside the funding issue, which has obvious problems for all qualified DOs, the writer's final point is, in my mind, the most fundamental. Namely, that compulsory CET should only follow the re-regulation of dispensing.
The dispensing optician and the unqualified dispenser perform, not least in the public's opinion, the same function Ð namely supplying spectacles. Admittedly an unqualified dispenser needs to be 'overseen' when carrying out NHS voucher work. I also realise that a qualified DO may decide to undertake further training and qualification in contact lenses, low visual aids etc. But by-and-large our raison d'etre is to supply spectacles that meet the needs of our patients.
I have racked my brains to try to find another example of a professional career which one can take that allows an individual to carry out broadly the same function whether qualified or not. Can you imagine optometry being de-regulated and the qualified being forced to undertake CET, while the unqualified need not bother?
I am a 'believer' in compulsory CET for regulated professions since it protects the public and ensures ongoing education following qualification. In my spare time I partake in CET and will continue to do so for my own satisfaction. I approve of the concept but not where I am under compulsion to do so, and while spectacles of suspect standards and variable suitability are being supplied all over the country by unqualified persons.
For the professional body that supposedly represents its qualified members to push for the further expense and inconvenience of compulsory CET for its members, while ignoring the fundamental issue of re-regulation, is a farce. I can think of nothing that further penalises the qualified DO, or dissuades a potential DO more effectively than compulsory CET (with its added costs in time and money). Surely the priority in everyone's interest is to re-regulate dispensing? This would more effectively care for and protect the public, which is the purpose of compulsory CET for any profession.
Stephen Peacock,
Verwood, Dorset
Line between greed and professionalism
n Okay I admit it 'I am a Failure'. Unlike Michael Green I do not aspire to have a 100 per cent conversion rate, because, unlike Michael Green, I aim to provide a service while earning my living. This may include NOT selling a patient a pair of glasses if it is not appropriate.
The title of the article is misleading since it implies that there are principles in selling as advocated by Mr Green. If a 100 per cent conversion rate is his panacea for success then I would beg to differ. I am a DO with two practices of my own and have been in optics for 27 years. Admittedly during that time the optical market has changed beyond all recognition. The word of the OO is no longer sacrosanct when it comes to what people are going to wear. Competition is fierce and public expectations are high.
What Michael Green fails to recognise is for us mere mortals with, at worst, our pitiful 65 per cent conversion rate, many of us have to actually live in our practice catchment area. For us independents we have to provide quality of service to survive, this does not mean viewing everyone as an open wallet when they walk in. We aim to develop a relationship with our patients over several years, which will not happen if we exploit them. This is also the attitude which is recommended by the majority of management and business consultancy groups in optics today in relation to independent practices. The multiples are a different entity and should be treated as such.
The principles Mr Green espouses to achieve this high conversion rate are nothing new but just general tools which any marketing course will reveal. Unfortunately, these universal marketing and selling rules can be applied to a butcher, a baker, an optician and everyone else regardless of their business type or the requirements of their customers.
Having completed the Brunel University degree course in Business Administration, which included marketing, I do not dismiss the selling principles Mr Green promotes, but wish he would temper them with a modicum of common sense. In the public domain optics generally has a bad name for over pricing and sharp practice. I fail to see how Michael Green's dictum will counter this. Yes we should aim to supply our patients with all the optical devices they need in every shape and form, but they will not revisit us if we foist unnecessary things on them just to achieve a conversion rate.
The main difference between Mr Green and many of us in optics is that he is selling a product, but we are selling ourselves, our services and our products. At times the selling of a product is not appropriate for the patient but it doesn't make us failures. In fact I would say that failure is not knowing where to draw the line between greed and professionalism.
Melanie Chilvers
Norwich.

Frames for the elderly man
n Hands up. I am the 'sad' journalist whom Omen accuses of ageism (February 27) for my article 'When I'm 64', a look at frame styles for men in their 60s and 70s (February 13). Having included some frames which he described as 'more suited to the 1980s', he attacks my feature for stereotyping 'life after 40' as 'consignment to carpet slippers and a Zimmer frame'.
No one doubts that many men in their 40s and 50s, such as Omen's examples of David Trimble and the Lord Mayor of London (both 59), are keen to achieve a modern look. May I refer him to last year's feature on younger male presbyopes, 'Style begins at 40' (March 21, 2003). Some men in their 60s and 70s will of course prefer the contemporary frames featured last March and this was reflected by some styles on the page last month.
What would have been 'sad' would have been to ignore the reality of what most practices offer elderly men, what the frame companies supply for this sector Ð they sent in the pictures Ð and, fundamentally, what most men in this age range wear and want. I'm happy we didn't.
Rob Moss
Features editor

Premium pricefor lens service
n Frank Norville (Letters, March 5) has obviously forgotten his own company's 'Master Rx' service that I and other opticians were happy to pay for in the seventies and eighties.
If I remember correctly, the charge was £6, which corresponded to a hefty premium over the cost of the lenses, sometimes nearly 100 per cent, let alone the 10 or even 20 per cent over the cost price Frank doesn't feel we are prepared to pay nowadays to secure a 'superlative' service.
Furthermore, he mentions new investment in technology will eliminate the silly human errors, but I was told recently that the reason the job kept going wrong was down to the computer! Oh dear!
David Levy
Radlett, Hertfordshire
Re-regulation is the real issue
n After many months watching the development of ABDO's CET programme, it is interesting and very frustrating to see things falling apart somewhat with the funding issue relating to the forthcoming introduction of compulsion.
I am convinced that J Plenty (Letters, March 5) has spoken for the overwhelming majority of qualified dispensing opticians who see the push for compulsory CET and ask themselves 'why?' Putting aside the funding issue, which has obvious problems for all qualified DOs, the writer's final point is, in my mind, the most fundamental. Namely, that compulsory CET should only follow the re-regulation of dispensing.
The dispensing optician and the unqualified dispenser perform, not least in the public's opinion, the same function Ð namely supplying spectacles. Admittedly an unqualified dispenser needs to be 'overseen' when carrying out NHS voucher work. I also realise that a qualified DO may decide to undertake further training and qualification in contact lenses, low visual aids etc. But by-and-large our raison d'etre is to supply spectacles that meet the needs of our patients.
I have racked my brains to try to find another example of a professional career which one can take that allows an individual to carry out broadly the same function whether qualified or not. Can you imagine optometry being de-regulated and the qualified being forced to undertake CET, while the unqualified need not bother?
I am a 'believer' in compulsory CET for regulated professions since it protects the public and ensures ongoing education following qualification. In my spare time I partake in CET and will continue to do so for my own satisfaction. I approve of the concept but not where I am under compulsion to do so, and while spectacles of suspect standards and variable suitability are being supplied all over the country by unqualified persons.
For the professional body that supposedly represents its qualified members to push for the further expense and inconvenience of compulsory CET for its members, while ignoring the fundamental issue of re-regulation, is a farce. I can think of nothing that further penalises the qualified DO, or dissuades a potential DO more effectively than compulsory CET (with its added costs in time and money). Surely the priority in everyone's interest is to re-regulate dispensing? This would more effectively care for and protect the public, which is the purpose of compulsory CET for any profession.
Stephen Peacock,
Verwood, Dorset
Line between greed and professionalism
n Okay I admit it 'I am a Failure'. Unlike Michael Green I do not aspire to have a 100 per cent conversion rate, because, unlike Michael Green, I aim to provide a service while earning my living. This may include NOT selling a patient a pair of glasses if it is not appropriate.
The title of the article is misleading since it implies that there are principles in selling as advocated by Mr Green. If a 100 per cent conversion rate is his panacea for success then I would beg to differ. I am a DO with two practices of my own and have been in optics for 27 years. Admittedly during that time the optical market has changed beyond all recognition. The word of the OO is no longer sacrosanct when it comes to what people are going to wear. Competition is fierce and public expectations are high.
What Michael Green fails to recognise is for us mere mortals with, at worst, our pitiful 65 per cent conversion rate, many of us have to actually live in our practice catchment area. For us independents we have to provide quality of service to survive, this does not mean viewing everyone as an open wallet when they walk in. We aim to develop a relationship with our patients over several years, which will not happen if we exploit them. This is also the attitude which is recommended by the majority of management and business consultancy groups in optics today in relation to independent practices. The multiples are a different entity and should be treated as such.
The principles Mr Green espouses to achieve this high conversion rate are nothing new but just general tools which any marketing course will reveal. Unfortunately, these universal marketing and selling rules can be applied to a butcher, a baker, an optician and everyone else regardless of their business type or the requirements of their customers.
Having completed the Brunel University degree course in Business Administration, which included marketing, I do not dismiss the selling principles Mr Green promotes, but wish he would temper them with a modicum of common sense. In the public domain optics generally has a bad name for over pricing and sharp practice. I fail to see how Michael Green's dictum will counter this. Yes we should aim to supply our patients with all the optical devices they need in every shape and form, but they will not revisit us if we foist unnecessary things on them just to achieve a conversion rate.
The main difference between Mr Green and many of us in optics is that he is selling a product, but we are selling ourselves, our services and our products. At times the selling of a product is not appropriate for the patient but it doesn't make us failures. In fact I would say that failure is not knowing where to draw the line between greed and professionalism.
Melanie Chilvers
Norwich.

Frames for the elderly man
n Hands up. I am the 'sad' journalist whom Omen accuses of ageism (February 27) for my article 'When I'm 64', a look at frame styles for men in their 60s and 70s (February 13). Having included some frames which he described as 'more suited to the 1980s', he attacks my feature for stereotyping 'life after 40' as 'consignment to carpet slippers and a Zimmer frame'.
No one doubts that many men in their 40s and 50s, such as Omen's examples of David Trimble and the Lord Mayor of London (both 59), are keen to achieve a modern look. May I refer him to last year's feature on younger male presbyopes, 'Style begins at 40' (March 21, 2003). Some men in their 60s and 70s will of course prefer the contemporary frames featured last March and this was reflected by some styles on the page last month.
What would have been 'sad' would have been to ignore the reality of what most practices offer elderly men, what the frame companies supply for this sector Ð they sent in the pictures Ð and, fundamentally, what most men in this age range wear and want. I'm happy we didn't.
Rob Moss
Features editor

Premium pricefor lens service
n Frank Norville (Letters, March 5) has obviously forgotten his own company's 'Master Rx' service that I and other opticians were happy to pay for in the seventies and eighties.
If I remember correctly, the charge was £6, which corresponded to a hefty premium over the cost of the lenses, sometimes nearly 100 per cent, let alone the 10 or even 20 per cent over the cost price Frank doesn't feel we are prepared to pay nowadays to secure a 'superlative' service.
Furthermore, he mentions new investment in technology will eliminate the silly human errors, but I was told recently that the reason the job kept going wrong was down to the computer! Oh dear!
David Levy
Radlett, Hertfordshire
Re-regulation is the real issue
n After many months watching the development of ABDO's CET programme, it is interesting and very frustrating to see things falling apart somewhat with the funding issue relating to the forthcoming introduction of compulsion.
I am convinced that J Plenty (Letters, March 5) has spoken for the overwhelming majority of qualified dispensing opticians who see the push for compulsory CET and ask themselves 'why?' Putting aside the funding issue, which has obvious problems for all qualified DOs, the writer's final point is, in my mind, the most fundamental. Namely, that compulsory CET should only follow the re-regulation of dispensing.
The dispensing optician and the unqualified dispenser perform, not least in the public's opinion, the same function Ð namely supplying spectacles. Admittedly an unqualified dispenser needs to be 'overseen' when carrying out NHS voucher work. I also realise that a qualified DO may decide to undertake further training and qualification in contact lenses, low visual aids etc. But by-and-large our raison d'etre is to supply spectacles that meet the needs of our patients.
I have racked my brains to try to find another example of a professional career which one can take that allows an individual to carry out broadly the same function whether qualified or not. Can you imagine optometry being de-regulated and the qualified being forced to undertake CET, while the unqualified need not bother?
I am a 'believer' in compulsory CET for regulated professions since it protects the public and ensures ongoing education following qualification. In my spare time I partake in CET and will continue to do so for my own satisfaction. I approve of the concept but not where I am under compulsion to do so, and while spectacles of suspect standards and variable suitability are being supplied all over the country by unqualified persons.
For the professional body that supposedly represents its qualified members to push for the further expense and inconvenience of compulsory CET for its members, while ignoring the fundamental issue of re-regulation, is a farce. I can think of nothing that further penalises the qualified DO, or dissuades a potential DO more effectively than compulsory CET (with its added costs in time and money). Surely the priority in everyone's interest is to re-regulate dispensing? This would more effectively care for and protect the public, which is the purpose of compulsory CET for any profession.
Stephen Peacock,
Verwood, Dorset
Line between greed and professionalism
n Okay I admit it 'I am a Failure'. Unlike Michael Green I do not aspire to have a 100 per cent conversion rate, because, unlike Michael Green, I aim to provide a service while earning my living. This may include NOT selling a patient a pair of glasses if it is not appropriate.
The title of the article is misleading since it implies that there are principles in selling as advocated by Mr Green. If a 100 per cent conversion rate is his panacea for success then I would beg to differ. I am a DO with two practices of my own and have been in optics for 27 years. Admittedly during that time the optical market has changed beyond all recognition. The word of the OO is no longer sacrosanct when it comes to what people are going to wear. Competition is fierce and public expectations are high.
What Michael Green fails to recognise is for us mere mortals with, at worst, our pitiful 65 per cent conversion rate, many of us have to actually live in our practice catchment area. For us independents we have to provide quality of service to survive, this does not mean viewing everyone as an open wallet when they walk in. We aim to develop a relationship with our patients over several years, which will not happen if we exploit them. This is also the attitude which is recommended by the majority of management and business consultancy groups in optics today in relation to independent practices. The multiples are a different entity and should be treated as such.
The principles Mr Green espouses to achieve this high conversion rate are nothing new but just general tools which any marketing course will reveal. Unfortunately, these universal marketing and selling rules can be applied to a butcher, a baker, an optician and everyone else regardless of their business type or the requirements of their customers.
Having completed the Brunel University degree course in Business Administration, which included marketing, I do not dismiss the selling principles Mr Green promotes, but wish he would temper them with a modicum of common sense. In the public domain optics generally has a bad name for over pricing and sharp practice. I fail to see how Michael Green's dictum will counter this. Yes we should aim to supply our patients with all the optical devices they need in every shape and form, but they will not revisit us if we foist unnecessary things on them just to achieve a conversion rate.
The main difference between Mr Green and many of us in optics is that he is selling a product, but we are selling ourselves, our services and our products. At times the selling of a product is not appropriate for the patient but it doesn't make us failures. In fact I would say that failure is not knowing where to draw the line between greed and professionalism.
Melanie Chilvers
Norwich.

Frames for the elderly man
n Hands up. I am the 'sad' journalist whom Omen accuses of ageism (February 27) for my article 'When I'm 64', a look at frame styles for men in their 60s and 70s (February 13). Having included some frames which he described as 'more suited to the 1980s', he attacks my feature for stereotyping 'life after 40' as 'consignment to carpet slippers and a Zimmer frame'.
No one doubts that many men in their 40s and 50s, such as Omen's examples of David Trimble and the Lord Mayor of London (both 59), are keen to achieve a modern look. May I refer him to last year's feature on younger male presbyopes, 'Style begins at 40' (March 21, 2003). Some men in their 60s and 70s will of course prefer the contemporary frames featured last March and this was reflected by some styles on the page last month.
What would have been 'sad' would have been to ignore the reality of what most practices offer elderly men, what the frame companies supply for this sector Ð they sent in the pictures Ð and, fundamentally, what most men in this age range wear and want. I'm happy we didn't.
Rob Moss
Features editor

Premium pricefor lens service
n Frank Norville (Letters, March 5) has obviously forgotten his own company's 'Master Rx' service that I and other opticians were happy to pay for in the seventies and eighties.
If I remember correctly, the charge was £6, which corresponded to a hefty premium over the cost of the lenses, sometimes nearly 100 per cent, let alone the 10 or even 20 per cent over the cost price Frank doesn't feel we are prepared to pay nowadays to secure a 'superlative' service.
Furthermore, he mentions new investment in technology will eliminate the silly human errors, but I was told recently that the reason the job kept going wrong was down to the computer! Oh dear!
David Levy
Radlett, Hertfordshire
Re-regulation is the real issue
n After many months watching the development of ABDO's CET programme, it is interesting and very frustrating to see things falling apart somewhat with the funding issue relating to the forthcoming introduction of compulsion.
I am convinced that J Plenty (Letters, March 5) has spoken for the overwhelming majority of qualified dispensing opticians who see the push for compulsory CET and ask themselves 'why?' Putting aside the funding issue, which has obvious problems for all qualified DOs, the writer's final point is, in my mind, the most fundamental. Namely, that compulsory CET should only follow the re-regulation of dispensing.
The dispensing optician and the unqualified dispenser perform, not least in the public's opinion, the same function Ð namely supplying spectacles. Admittedly an unqualified dispenser needs to be 'overseen' when carrying out NHS voucher work. I also realise that a qualified DO may decide to undertake further training and qualification in contact lenses, low visual aids etc. But by-and-large our raison d'etre is to supply spectacles that meet the needs of our patients.
I have racked my brains to try to find another example of a professional career which one can take that allows an individual to carry out broadly the same function whether qualified or not. Can you imagine optometry being de-regulated and the qualified being forced to undertake CET, while the unqualified need not bother?
I am a 'believer' in compulsory CET for regulated professions since it protects the public and ensures ongoing education following qualification. In my spare time I partake in CET and will continue to do so for my own satisfaction. I approve of the concept but not where I am under compulsion to do so, and while spectacles of suspect standards and variable suitability are being supplied all over the country by unqualified persons.
For the professional body that supposedly represents its qualified members to push for the further expense and inconvenience of compulsory CET for its members, while ignoring the fundamental issue of re-regulation, is a farce. I can think of nothing that further penalises the qualified DO, or dissuades a potential DO more effectively than compulsory CET (with its added costs in time and money). Surely the priority in everyone's interest is to re-regulate dispensing? This would more effectively care for and protect the public, which is the purpose of compulsory CET for any profession.
Stephen Peacock,
Verwood, Dorset
Line between greed and professionalism
n Okay I admit it 'I am a Failure'. Unlike Michael Green I do not aspire to have a 100 per cent conversion rate, because, unlike Michael Green, I aim to provide a service while earning my living. This may include NOT selling a patient a pair of glasses if it is not appropriate.
The title of the article is misleading since it implies that there are principles in selling as advocated by Mr Green. If a 100 per cent conversion rate is his panacea for success then I would beg to differ. I am a DO with two practices of my own and have been in optics for 27 years. Admittedly during that time the optical market has changed beyond all recognition. The word of the OO is no longer sacrosanct when it comes to what people are going to wear. Competition is fierce and public expectations are high.
What Michael Green fails to recognise is for us mere mortals with, at worst, our pitiful 65 per cent conversion rate, many of us have to actually live in our practice catchment area. For us independents we have to provide quality of service to survive, this does not mean viewing everyone as an open wallet when they walk in. We aim to develop a relationship with our patients over several years, which will not happen if we exploit them. This is also the attitude which is recommended by the majority of management and business consultancy groups in optics today in relation to independent practices. The multiples are a different entity and should be treated as such.
The principles Mr Green espouses to achieve this high conversion rate are nothing new but just general tools which any marketing course will reveal. Unfortunately, these universal marketing and selling rules can be applied to a butcher, a baker, an optician and everyone else regardless of their business type or the requirements of their customers.
Having completed the Brunel University degree course in Business Administration, which included marketing, I do not dismiss the selling principles Mr Green promotes, but wish he would temper them with a modicum of common sense. In the public domain optics generally has a bad name for over pricing and sharp practice. I fail to see how Michael Green's dictum will counter this. Yes we should aim to supply our patients with all the optical devices they need in every shape and form, but they will not revisit us if we foist unnecessary things on them just to achieve a conversion rate.
The main difference between Mr Green and many of us in optics is that he is selling a product, but we are selling ourselves, our services and our products. At times the selling of a product is not appropriate for the patient but it doesn't make us failures. In fact I would say that failure is not knowing where to draw the line between greed and professionalism.
Melanie Chilvers
Norwich.

Frames for the elderly man
n Hands up. I am the 'sad' journalist whom Omen accuses of ageism (February 27) for my article 'When I'm 64', a look at frame styles for men in their 60s and 70s (February 13). Having included some frames which he described as 'more suited to the 1980s', he attacks my feature for stereotyping 'life after 40' as 'consignment to carpet slippers and a Zimmer frame'.
No one doubts that many men in their 40s and 50s, such as Omen's examples of David Trimble and the Lord Mayor of London (both 59), are keen to achieve a modern look. May I refer him to last year's feature on younger male presbyopes, 'Style begins at 40' (March 21, 2003). Some men in their 60s and 70s will of course prefer the contemporary frames featured last March and this was reflected by some styles on the page last month.
What would have been 'sad' would have been to ignore the reality of what most practices offer elderly men, what the frame companies supply for this sector Ð they sent in the pictures Ð and, fundamentally, what most men in this age range wear and want. I'm happy we didn't.
Rob Moss
Features editor

Premium pricefor lens service
n Frank Norville (Letters, March 5) has obviously forgotten his own company's 'Master Rx' service that I and other opticians were happy to pay for in the seventies and eighties.
If I remember correctly, the charge was £6, which corresponded to a hefty premium over the cost of the lenses, sometimes nearly 100 per cent, let alone the 10 or even 20 per cent over the cost price Frank doesn't feel we are prepared to pay nowadays to secure a 'superlative' service.
Furthermore, he mentions new investment in technology will eliminate the silly human errors, but I was told recently that the reason the job kept going wrong was down to the computer! Oh dear!
David Levy
Radlett, Hertfordshire