Simon Jones: Letting go of refraction

The General Optical Council’s call for evidence on potential reform of the Opticians Act 1989 has once again raised the thorny topic of separating refraction from the ocular health aspect of the eye exam, possibly even making refraction a delegated function in the same way that pre-exam imaging is carried out.

This would represent a seismic change in the way practices operate and while many dispensing opticians may be excited by the prospect of upskilling to perform refractions, I think advances in technology has pretty much put paid to that.

At 100% Optical recently, I tried Topcon’s Chronos device, which offers binocular autorefraction and a subjective assessment of visual acuity. Having recently had an ‘old school’ refraction and with the Rx still etched in my memory because of the first correction of presbyopia, I thought it would be a good time to test its accuracy. With just 0.25D difference to my spectacle prescription, I’d say the accuracy was pretty good.