Renegotiate the NHS General Optical Services contract

The general public in England deserve the best eye care possible. Government funded eye care should be available to all. A system similar to Scotland should be introduced so that the whole of the UK has equality of care and uniformity.

For many years the NHS GOS contract in England has been under funded. This year the fees have been frozen for the fifth year running. What’s worse is that the news has come during the current pandemic. A time when hospital eye departments would be better off with fewer patients.

During these periods there have been many advancements in the optics industry across the board. These advancements ultimately benefit the general public and remove pressures off the hospital eye service. During these advancements the funding has always remained extremely low and therefore an eye examination needs to be subsidised by the sale of spectacles and contact lenses.

It could be argued that this current system is dangerous, because it neglects the importance of eye examinations and forces businesses to favour commercial targets through product sales. These commercial pressures are a direct result of the current NHS GOS contract. The general public deserves much more.

To rub salt in to the wounds, and due to the advancements within the industry, NHS England have regularly changed the GOS contract over the years to require Opticians to provide more and more free services as part of the GOS contract without fair remuneration or increases in GOS fees. It is clear that the cost of providing eye examinations is now five or six times more than the funding received to provide the service. In order to counter this, Optometrists are forced to complete more eye examinations by reducing the testing times. This does not benefit the general public and could potentially lead to missed pathology.

Under the current circumstances we still provide a world class service in this country when it comes to eye care, but we see very few benefits for providing these services. This is wholly unfair and morally unacceptable.

Another recent example of the governments failure to recognise the importance of the service Opticians provide is that during this covid-19 crisis, NHS England took far too long to provide emergency funding for emergency and essential eye care. Even then they’ve stated that the average funding they provide will be reduced based on something they are yet to officially conjure up.

The conclusion from all this is that the government does not take the public’s eye care seriously. As a profession we need your help to highlight these issues.

The early detection of eye disease is imperative. Financially it would save the government millions if not billions of pounds on health and social care. These savings could be used in other areas by the government.

It’s time for all Opticians to unite and take a stance for the betterment of the profession and to safeguard our patients.

The general public need to realise that the eyes we take for granted need the best care possible, and our government needs to re-prioritise eye care in England by providing adequate and fair funding.

The alternative would be for Opticians to collectively do away with the current inadequate NHS GOS contract, which I’m sure the government would want to avoid at all costs.