Keith Tempany knows that children are most certainly the future for the contact lens market.
The current BCLA president is the right mix of polite and purposeful when speaking to Optician at the organisation’s Visionaries event in London.
His presidential medal hangs down on a crisp white shirt tucked into jeans. Electric blue boots complete the ensemble and underline Tempany’s credentials as someone who stands out from the crowd as a contact lens expert.
Tempany speaks passionately about the subject he knows best.
He says: ‘The first time I looked down a slit lamp I really fell in love with that part of the eye and I wanted to explore this a lot more. So that’s where my love for contact lenses stems from.
‘The fact that you have a stronger relationship with the patient because you see them more frequently. You build up a nice rapport with the patient and it goes from strength to strength.’
Tempany’s story in optics began in 1973 when he qualified as a dispensing optician with Melson Wingate before going alone from 1982 – first in Devon and then Dorset.
He says: ‘I had always wanted to be my own boss and felt strongly and passionately about where we should be heading. When I opened my own practice it enabled me to chase the things I wanted to chase and look into things I wanted to look into.
‘We then went into the boutique side of things with a niche. A lot of opticians tried to do everything for everybody and we thought actually we just want to deal with some very niche brands and style the practice so it didn’t look like an opticians.
‘The styling was very different, with floating shelves, a marble floor and very minimalistic approach. We ran that for a couple of years and won a number of Optician Awards, including Fashion Practice of the Year.’
Indeed, Tempany’s reputation grew over the decades until in 2016 his Tempany’s Boutique Opticians and Contact Lens Specialists in Poole caught the eye of regional chain Leightons Opticians and Hearing Care.
He says: ‘Ryan Leighton (pictured far left with Tempany) approached us to consider merging with their Poole practice. We looked at it and thought it was a way of taking a bit of time out, strengthen and free up the management side of the business, and focus on the clinical side of the contact lens business.
‘Ryan’s way of running the business is to look at similar types of business in the area and then actually being able to merge with them. The fact that we’d won a couple of awards encouraged him to look at us as a brand to help build their Poole practice, and that’s how it came about.’
Now, in addition to his role as BCLA president, Tempany works four days a week in practice and plays a role in growing the contact lens side of the overall group.
‘The first few years have gone really well. As you’d expect when two businesses come together there has been growth and there’s been an interest. Maintaining that specialist side of the business has been a challenge and it’s been very enjoyable.
‘We’re very strongly looking at myopia and myopia management, plus training practices up to be able to offer this.’
The kids are alright
Myopia management and fitting children with contact lenses is a growing area of interest among BCLA members.
Tempany adds: ‘We are identifying areas where specific training is needed and the aim is to get overall growth in the contact lens sector. Myopia management is a great part of that and I strongly feel as president of the BCLA that we as eye care professionals have to be generally more comfortable fitting children with contact lenses, and often we act as a viable option for young children but we are very weak on that. We need to get more confident and get our communication skills up to speed to be able to communicate that as an option to children.
‘I think there is great opportunity for practitioners to wow their patients even more. Fitting kids is so rewarding on so many different levels, not just for myopia management. There is a host of evidence out there that it’s great for kids and it’s great for self-respect. It’s also great for sport because contact lenses are such a great way to see. So why shouldn’t we be recommending them to young people?
‘I think there are a lot of misconceptions that it takes longer to fit children. From personal experience, it doesn’t take longer than with any other patient. We have some children that will take longer but with others it won’t take as long, which is the same as with the adult contact lens wearing clients.’
Meanwhile, Optician quizzed Tempany on other challenges to independent practices and the arrival of OCT across all Specsavers stores this year (News 23.05.17).
He says: ‘As BCLA president I welcome any raising of clinical expertise within any practice. I certainly think it keeps us independents on our toes, and any challenge to be the best in the area is good.
‘If somebody has got the same bit of kit then how we use it and how we report it to our patients is the important thing.’
Tempany was raring to go at the Wellcome Collection, where around 200 delegates for the BCLA Visionaries Conference were gathering for a half-day and evening of debate on myopia, dry eye and retaining patients. Ophthalmologist Mr Ian Flitcroft was also due to deliver a keynote speech.
‘I am so excited about Visionaries today. It’s one of the strongest line ups we’ve had for a long time, it’s an absolute sell out.
‘It has always been on our calendar, has morphed over the years and is now a strong half day conference with the Pioneers lecture, which for me today is the icing on the cake. To get someone like Ian Flitcroft talking about myopia risks is as good as it gets.
‘We just encompass anybody and everybody and take a holistic approach to the anterior eye. We are looking at dry eye, retaining contact lens wearers and myopia – so it doesn’t get bigger than that to be honest,’ adds Tempany.
In addition to Visionaries, BCLA UK and Asia events have added to the Gloucester Terrace-based optical body’s global appeal.
Tempany says: ‘We were asked to help the Hong Kong Cornea and Contact Lens Society to run their programme in 2016 and that’s what we did. It was such a success we were asked to deliver it again within the Asian area and got requests from many countries. I went as a paying delegate and what struck me was the thirst for knowledge over there. There was a buzz and an excitement and the fact that the BCLA brand is so strong even that faraway.
‘We have a very strong global brand and I think we have to accept that and realise that sometimes we are going to have to move abroad and run conferences.’
The BCLA has also moved to support extra training among its members who want to provide extra clinical services with confidence. This includes a dry eye accreditation, while it is working on an Ortho-k and myopia management accreditation next year.
Beyond this, Tempany makes a final rallying call for practitioners to embrace the freshest faces of contact lens wear.
He adds: ‘I think we still undervalue contact lenses as an option for patients. Not only at the children’s end of the market but also the multifocal. We still have some practitioners who think multifocals don’t work. But they clearly do work at a certain level and are fantastic for people to enrich their lives.
‘So we’ve just got to get out of our mould of thinking this has never worked before and it can’t work now. We have to look at new things, new challenges and new lenses. Let’s try them and explore with them because contact lenses are a fantastic way for people to see and we need to be offering them to more people. You are never too old and never too young.’