Mystery shop: No prescription? - No problem

Six months after Optician published the results of its mystery shopping among internet contact lens suppliers, Chris Bennett, Rory Brogan, Alison Ewbank, Shannon McKenzie and Emma White repeated the exercise to determine whether businesses are now complying with the law. Here’s what they found.

'Frankly horrific’ was how the General Optical Council described some of the responses to Optician’s first mystery shopper exercise among online contact lens suppliers, carried out in February and March this year (Buyer beware, April 28).

The survey found that while some companies were operating within the regulations introduced in June 2005, others agreed to supply lenses without an in-date specification or verifying the prescription with the prescribing practitioner.