Letter: £90m figure is DoH estimate

In response to your article, 'Scottish-style deal for England to cost £90m' (Optician, February 17), we would like to make it clear to readers of Optician that the £90m was not a figure the optical industry came up with.

In the health select committee hearing, Lynn Hansford (chairman of the Association of Optometrists) was referring to the Department of Health's own statistics that suggest the estimated cost of introducing a similar scheme to England, according to the DoH, has been put at around 90m.

Speaking at an earlier health committee session, Ben Dyson, head of dental and ophthalmic services at the DoH, said: 'For sight tests, we estimate that if you were to extend free sight tests to all those who currently pay privately for sight tests, the costs would be about an additional £92m, based on the current rate of £18.39 per test.'

Of course, to realise our ambitions to extend the role of optometry as suggested in the recent document, Primary Eye Care in England, this would require greater funds than £90m. We look forward to discussing this further with the DoH and making the case for this investment to produce longer term savings for the NHS.

David Cartwright
Director of professional services, Boots Opticians
President, College of Optometrists
Lynn Hansford
Chairman, Association of Optometrists