Letter: View from the AIO

At 100% Optical, during the presentation made by Doug Perkins of Specsavers, a question was asked from the floor about optometrists becoming ‘eye doctors’. This is a subject which AIO has considered on a number of occasions and about which it has a clear policy in place.

AIO advocates the introduction of a doctor of optometry degree and use of the term doctor of optometry for those holding appropriate higher qualifications (Further discussions with the academic community are required).

Doug Perkins has made it clear optometry in multiples will increasingly become more clinically focused. AIO’s position is good independents are already very much clinically focused and continue to be the first adopters of new technology that advances the sophistication of the clinical service optometrists can offer their patients. It has to be in the public interest that not only does the profession travel a journey of clinical excellence, but it also becomes the unchallenged provider of primary eye care in England as indeed it is increasingly in Scotland and Wales.