Letter: ?Perceptions matter

This month the GOC published its fourth in a series of public perception surveys on opticians in the UK. First run in 2015, followed by 2016 and 2017 this consumer style vox pop research appears to demonstrate useful trends in public perception. These data sets show, superficially at least, a very slow trend in improved public perception of opticians as healthcare providers and a clear split in perceptions in the devolved countries.

Unfortunately, there are potential flaws in this research. Clearly the researchers do differentiate respondents into patients (69% visited within two years) or non-patients (31%) but in my opinion this does not go far enough.