Summer is just around the corner and seaside towns across the nation are gearing up for their busiest season. With its soft sandy beaches, annual air show and proximity to the New Forest national park, Bournemouth is one of the nation’s most popular seaside towns. Yet this year, the town’s optical practices are focusing on much more than just selling sunglasses throughout the summer months.
Bournemouth is a vibrant place to live and work according to Classic Eyes director and optometrist Justin Hardy. He says: ‘We have a great cross-section of people, a mix of good retail stores as well as some great places to eat and get a coffee. We notice the town being much busier during the summer months but our core patient base still tends to be the local population.’
Taking pride in its independent label, the practice does not compete on price when it comes to the cost of a sight test which is set at a starting point of £54. Hardy says: ‘We feel that by charging appropriately for our professional time, we are able to offer impartial advice based on clinical needs rather than purely commercial interests. Being independent also means we deal with a wide range of suppliers and as such are not limited to any specific product offering.’
Hardy (pictured left) tries to stand out from competitors by offering a range of enhanced services. He says: ‘Constant innovation and improvement is vital for sustained business growth. We offer many enhanced eye care services including: specialist dry eye clinics, reading rehabilitation and dyslexia managements, treatment for minor eye injuries and specialist contact lens fitting.’
As well as its clinical services, the practice also aims to adapt to its patients’ eyewear needs wherever possible. ‘We offer bespoke eyewear which allows for a more custom design for a discerning patient. We see a number of students from Bournemouth University and the language schools which means we need to ensure our frame and contact lens offering appeals to them.’
Matching the local drive for specialised eye care, the Specsavers store in Boscombe, a suburb of Bournemouth, is constantly advancing its enhanced optical services. Store director Andreas Booth says: ‘We’re very focused on making sure our equipment is always up to date so we’re offering the best care possible. We have a large catchment area so it’s important for us to market our services in the right way to keep people coming back.’
Enhanced services are just one of many ways to keep people coming through the doors, which Booth says is the store’s greatest challenge. ‘Bournemouth has got a fair few opticians dotted around, luckily in Boscombe there isn’t much competition but we have to bear in mind people are visiting us for a reason so it’s important to build relationships with our patients over time.’
Who’s in town?
Total: 14
Independents: 9
Multiples: 5
Average costs
Prices of an eye examination range from £21 to £54. The average cost is £30.
Population - see pie chart
Bournemouth population: 183,491 (ONS 2011)
Community eye care
According to the Locsu Atlas Map of Optical Variation, Dorset Local Optical Committee has secured a contract for Dorset CCG in low vision, stable glaucoma monitoring and glaucoma repeat readings.
Health and affluence
- The average house price in Bournemouth is £ 261,778 (Rightmove, 2017) compared with an average of £217,502 for England and Wales (Land Registry, 2017).
- NHS expenditure on vision problems in Bournemouth per person is £99, compared with the UK average of £89 (RNIB Sight Loss Data Tool 2015).
- 1,360 patients live in Bournemouth with late stage wet AMD and 660 with dry AMD (RNIB).
- There are about 2,080 people living in Bournemouth who have cataract, 1,730 people with glaucoma and 11,900 with diabetes. Some 3,980 patients have diabetic retinopathy according to RNIB figures.
Fun facts
Every year an average 750,000 ice creams are bought on the seven miles of Bournemouth seafront.
The first arrests in the Great Train Robbery investigation were made in the town.
Bournemouth was the first place in the UK to have purpose-built beach huts.
Bournemouth Pier has the world’s first and only pier-to-shore zipline.
In 2012 Bournemouth was unsuccessful in its bid for city status, losing out to Chelmsford.
Authors JRR Tolkein and Enid Blyton lived in Bournemouth and Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde there.