Viewpoint

YAFOO WRITES
Price war
I had a patient mention to me the latest publicity over spectacle prices in the high street - but thankfully she mentioned it when talking about the competition. 'Did you know the prices of your "friends" have been slated in the [Daily] Mail,' she grinned. She's mentioned my 'friends' - meaning our rival multiple retailers - before. Strange way of referring to them I thought.
The fact that the national press has picked up on this 'dotcom entrepreneur' and his offers, and repeatedly printed his web address (www.glassesdirect.co.uk ...oops, now I've done it), when everyone's prices in the high street appear to be at rock bottom too, makes you wonder where it will all end.

Chasing the offers
The patient who read about saving cash by going to the cut-price web offers sums up a wider issue which frustrates me when I focus on helping people's sight. She, and many others who are shopping around for cheaper vision correction, not realising that the eye test offers much more, as does continuity of care from an optometrist. I know many people change their optician year after year and base their actions on the best prices they can get. Even though it means they save a few quid I honestly don't think they know it means they are in fact caring less about the health issue of their eyes. I know it's an old plea in these pages, but the profession really could do with a public information campaign aimed at those who plan to 'shop around', telling them loyalty means an ability for the professional to monitor disease and other matters.

What goes down
If you're reading this in a multiple, have you noticed how all our prices have been plummeting in the high street? Obviously we're all competing against each other, which is fair enough, but does anyone higher up than us professionals working in the testing rooms realise that once these prices have gone as low as they're going, there's no way the public will accept them going back up again. In reality, we're just making things harder in what is a competitive market. Do our bosses understand this?

Static salaries 
Since I qualified I had quite a good pay rise, but now it's static. Unfortunately the word on the street is the only way I could get more is to work quicker - something I refuse to do. Asking around, my professional colleagues who have gone for job interviews have found that, unlike in the past when jumping ship to another company you would normally get a pay rise, they aren't willing to pay any more.
Viewing recently published figures, that old adage that we high street practitioners earn far more than hospital optometrists - and will continue to do so - looks a bit shaky at the moment, and if anything the trend might mean they will have the last laugh.
One person I know who went for an interview bemoaned the changes made in recent years to increase the number of optometrists qualifying, blaming our static salaries on the efforts made to boost the total of practitioners at a time when salaries were sky high. Some of us have never known a time when we were in demand so much it meant regular improvements to our pay packet. How the optical company bosses motivate staff today is a question for them, and not one I am motivated by my static wage to help answer.
Maybe the answer is to get involved in the wider aspects of practice in my day to day work, and doing something different rather than solely refracting patients. The eye care pathways mentioned in this week's optician are very interesting, so too our move into prescribing which could help further my career.