Simon Jones: A remote possibility

As you would expect, the General Optical Council’s first business registrant survey provided lots of intriguing data, much of which can be found in this week’s In Focus (page 6).

Innovation was at the core of the results, with three in every four businesses reporting the introduction of new or improved clinical services to patients over the past three years. An additional one in four claimed to have introduced a clinical service that was entirely new to the market.

As someone who has tracked the progress of online and remote eye care for over a decade, I was particularly keen to find out how businesses were innovating with remote technology. Surprisingly, 5% of independents said they were using the technology currently, ahead of multiples on 4%.