Verum writes: Enough work to go round?

In this column last month, which focused upon the recently published General Ophthalmic Services activity to March 2018, I briefly mentioned current workload, which appears to be decreasing per optometrist, in contrast to optometry student numbers. Specifically that there was likely to be yet more increases in the number of universities setting up optometry courses resulting in an increase in students who were going to be studying optometry.

I’m sure there will be those in the profession, already qualified, who view this likelihood with trepidation as they believe that a flood of optometrists in the marketplace will have the potential to decrease salaries. There may be limited reassurance in the recent Optician (September 28) survey of optometry salaries which suggests that despite numbers already increasing, salaries have not decreased – as yet.