Chris Bennett: Cross border thinking

European harmony, or lack of it, is very much in the news at the moment so its interesting to take a peek at our continental cousins.

I had the opportunity last week to mix with a large group of optical journalists from across Europe  and the differences in the way eyecare is managed is staggering. It’s not uncommon for a rural French dweller to wait six months for an ophthalmologist to examine their eyes before taking the prescription to a shop to buy eyewear. French opticians are currently facing a ‘rip off’ expose courtesy of the consumer right magazine Que choisir plus a  low cost assault from a dot com entrepreneur. One Scandinavian  journalist practitioner told me that no lens left his practice without a full MAR coating product, another bemoaned the lack of sports vision specialists in Italy.