A week of news - the age of the direct debit

Latest research by the news desk shows only half of UK practices offer direct debit services to their patients.

For a more detailed breakdown, see Friday's edition, but this stunningly low headline figure highlights an obvious opportunity to capture more patients.

While committing longstanding patients to a regular payment might not feel instantly comfortable to some practitioners, a generation of contact lens wearers might even come to expect it.

Indeed, the majority are happy to swap physical bills and written correspondence with online banking and email. The average patient walking through the door is likely to have subscriptions with Lovefilm or Spotify and contracted to regular phone and Internet contracts.