Verum Writes: More university courses pop up but what skills are needed?

It seems the majority of the profession have reacted negatively to the concept of yet another University offering an optometry degree.  We now know that the University of Hertfordshire has the go ahead from the General Optical Council to start the master in Optometry course in September and there has been the overall perception of inevitable further increase in numbers of optometrists chasing the same number of jobs with a resulting fall in salaries.

I have already raised in this column the fact that no one at present actually knows whether more optometrists are needed and work is being done to look at numbers required going forward.  In all the discussions regarding university courses and manpower, the headline issue is always numbers and personally I suspect we can show that against the background of an ageing population, more optometrists are required.  After all there are still areas of the country where there is a shortage.