Optometry students are flooding into multiples to complete their pre-reg schemes in a worrying trend for independent optical practices.
According to the College of Optometrists’ latest pre-registration trainee analysis report, spanning June 2014 to August 2016, 85% of pre-reg placements were in multiple practices. Just 9% of the cohort completed their pre-reg with an independent and only 9% chose the hospital setting.
In total, 593 trainees completed the scheme for registration during the two-year period.
Of the multiples attracting optometry students between 2014-16, Specsavers offered 52% of the places, with 19% at Boots Opticians and 12% completed at Vision Express.
The figures suggested a surge in numbers favouring the multiple setting when compared with where optometrists established on the high street decided to train in the past.
Latest data collected as part of March’s Optician Market Monitor also asked how pre-reg training has evolved in UK optometry.
Of the 62 qualified optometrists contributing to Market Monitor, 48% had completed their own pre-reg placement in a multiple setting. Of the remainder, 37% had chosen an independent practice for their pre-reg year, and 15% had trained in the hospital setting.
Independent practice owner Jonathan Foreman (pictured) told Optician he suspected the majority of multiples had a higher throughput of sight tests, and aimed for high growth, mostly through customer acquisition.
‘This means more need for a pipeline of staff, and they have more resources to accommodate this, with systems in place to ensure compliance with various standards. This could be for health and safety, data protection, HR, training and development, business growth. So they have a need, and can get people up to speed quickly, and both parties can be confident that each of them is getting their side of the bargain met. This could be something that a smaller independent with the pressures of doing many things might find hard to match.’
Foreman, MD of Observatory the Opticians and Wardale Williams the Opticians admitted, while he was a proud independent, some multiples had the edge in this regard. ‘However, I think this helps us independents later. I think we can take an individual and add a great deal of professional and personal satisfaction after their pre-reg and a couple of years in a multiple,’ he added. ‘Some will stay with them, though most will not, I think, and we independents can make a much more rewarding life and work balanced career. That leaves a vacancy in the multiple so they can start again. This helps everyone, from the pre-reg, the multiple, and later on the independent, so this also must be good for the public. Some of the best professionals I know have experience in both spheres.’
Results from Market Monitor showed that, altogether, 41% of optical practices now offered pre-reg training.
Of the 59% of practices that did not, the primary barrier was funding, with 60% citing financial reasons for this.
Among the other reasons for abstaining were not having a trained supervisor at 33% of practices and a lack of demand from potential pre-reg students reported by 7% of respondents.
Christian French (pictured), chairman of the Association for Independent Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians (AIO) and also a pre-reg supervisor, told Optician smaller practices sometimes simply did not have the room or the clinic space. However, he called on practices to find a way and said the College of Optometrists had made it possible to now share a trainee.
‘Independents should really think about succession planning, and what better way to ensure that the person taking your practice over is going to do the job properly than to train them yourself? I think employers and potential supervisors are possibly afraid that the Scheme for Registration is too complex and that they won’t be able to help the student, but AIO is able to support supervisors who may need help or advice, and we have good links with Optom Academy who offer private revision courses for the pre-reg scheme.’
He added that while multiples have extensive training programmes in place for the pre-reg year, industry leaders such as Johnson & Johnson offered equivalent training courses whether based in multiple or independent practice.
French, who completed his pre-reg year with a multiple, said the advantages of the independent sector was that the method of eye examination will be more familiar to students just leaving university, with a longer testing time and wealth of equipment available to the student in a very clinical setting.
He said: ‘It is quite a culture shock for some pre-regs when they find themselves in a fast-paced environment of 20-minute eye exams and the pressures of conversion rates. The patients at an independent are possibly more accepting too, as they will come into the practice knowing that the appointments aren’t quick, but they will probably also know the supervisor very well and so, as I found, are happy to help by sitting as a patient for a pre-reg. Independent practice will typically get a range of patients with quite complex case histories, as my pre-reg had, and so he actually got loads of competencies signed off with a single patient episode.
‘I find it very sad when students leave university with a real passion for the clinical subject, only to get disappointed when they find themselves in the very commercial environment of the multiples. So my advice to independent practitioners thinking of retiring in the mid to near future, they should really consider a pre-reg as a solid succession plan.’
Market Monitor also found that transferring experience and skills was the main benefit of offering places, being cited by 90% of respondents. ‘To further your own clinical and professional skills’ was paramount for 79% of eye care professionals and being able ‘to help your practice recruit young optometrists’ was important to 74% of respondents.
SightCare chief executive John French agreed independent practice owners understood that in order to grow professionally they need to focus not only on developing a trainee’s hard skills but also their soft skills.’
He said: ‘Independents approach training as an opportunity to create a mindset focused on development and not simply as a time to teach trainees to perform a certain task. They will teach employees how to manage people, how to ask the right questions to customers, and how to represent the brand. This helps to expand the trainee’s knowledge while encouraging a common and shared growth of employees. Training in an independent practice will always be more personalised than in a multiple setting and helps trainees, showing them freedom in choice of frames and lenses, and how to choose products to suit each individual.’
French also cited the recent development of four-year MOptom courses, including a new cohort at the University of Hertfordshire completing practical placements over years three and four – with the majority selecting Specsavers.
He added: ‘The independent sector should be very worried about the lack of trainees choosing the independent over the multiple and while there is a lot of regional variation, and there are at least two new optometry programmes which hope to incorporate the pre-reg year into the undergrad course like an internship. These courses are heavily supported by the multiples who are looking for low cost, new labour from early on.’
He also cited the background resources and abilities to the multiples have to recruit students at an early stage.
‘If one assumes that the market share for independent opticians is 25% then 75% of all optometry students are likely to have not experienced the clinical excellence and customer service of an independent practice. So when the large multiples turn up at the universities with their plentiful resources, and the lure of free ophthalmoscopes and retinoscopes, big business is appealing to the low cost, young trainee,’ added French.
Nevertheless, of the 88 optical professionals surveyed in March’s Market Monitor, 42% said the quality of pre-reg trainees was improving. The same number thought there was no change in the quality of students but 17% said they were getting worse.