Simon Jones: Money saving ‘experts’

I wanted to use my first leader column in this new role to say how humbling it has been to be made the seventh editor in Optician’s long and illustrious history, and to thank now editor-in-chief Chris Bennett for his tutelage during my years on Optician – but last week’s episode of Supershoppers has left me feeling rather aggrieved.

It’s frustrating that a poorly researched TV programme made the editorial call to put saving a few quid above people’s eyesight and the reputation of professionals that care for public health.

Straight off the bat, the presenter asked strategy consultant Dr Tony Grundy: ‘So, what sort of tricks do they play to get people to buy expensive glasses?’ The default assumption that patients were being tricked somehow was bad enough, but Dr Grundy’s disparaging summary of contrived clinical settings and customers being softened up in white coat quasi-medical environments before being passed to a salesperson was shocking.