Verum writes: Optometrists need to gain the trust of the patient

Why don’t people visit optical practices more often than they do? We are all aware that while the UK population is over 60 million, we only perform just over 20 million eye examinations per year. This means that a significant number of people are not having an eye examination every two years as we would recommend; some will take much longer in between visits and of course many will never have an examination at all.

We may all have our thoughts on why this is the case, but a constant theme from surveys is that potential patients are put off by their perception of the cost of a visit to the optician. In their mind, spectacles are an expensive purchase over which they may have little control, as they are completely in the hands of the optician who will advise them whether they need spectacles in the first place, whether their prescription has changed and the lenses they will have. Many believe that if they come for an examination this will lead to new spectacles whether they need them or not.