Letter: Coming around again

When I read Verum’s viewpoint column in the January 27 issue of Optician I half expected to find a Mr Denbigh cartoon on the one of the subsequent pages. I guess what goes around comes around and so perhaps I should not be so surprised to see a viewpoint popular in the 1970s recycled today.

But today’s optometrists work in a very different world to the ophthalmic environment that existed back then. The NHS fee while never exactly generous was in real terms somewhat better than the pittance it is today. So it is hardly surprising that today’s optometrists struggle to go the extra mile to give secondary care the level of detail they would prefer when the reality is that the GOS is so poorly remunerated. And of course litigation was hardly an issue in days gone by. It is quite different today and it is difficult not to be sympathetic to a colleague who plays it safe.