Daughter's glasses! Help needed please!

kerrypn

My daughter aged 4 is severely long sighted and therefore requires high prescription lenses and has since 18 months old. At the end of September, she attended an opthamologist appointment who furnished us with a new prescription, which we delivered to a well known optical chain, I will call company Y. We were told the glasses would be ready in 2 weeks, so would be ready on or around 12th October and they would call us when they were ready.
2 weeks passed and we hadnt heard so we phoned company Y's store. No answer. We then physically visited the store to discver it had been shut down and all custom transfered to another store around 10 miles away. We do not drive and rely on public transport, so this would not be our choice of store. No attempt had been made to inform us or get my daughters glasses to us.

We phoned the new store, who promised to send out the glasses.

A week later and still no glasses had arrived. We phoned to be told they had lost the prescription. They then found it and promised the glasses were in the post.
They never arrived. Last night I received a phone call stating the glasses were ready for collection so were never in the post at all!
Further more the manager and dispensing optician are refusing to speak to me about the issue, which I believe to be a direct contravention of their duty of care to my daughter.
I intend to visit the store tomorrow despite the inconvenience to obtain an explanation to this series of events.

Can anyone offer me some advice on the current situation please? Do you think the optician has failed in their duty of care to my 4 year old who has been without glasses for a month and a half?

whitewing

I do think the optician should reimburse your travel costs at the very least.

I guess you don't have to actually pay for your daughter's glasses as she is a child?

mandi

Ring Head Office and complain .. I had a terrible experience with Vision Express earlier this year . The store were telling me one thing and head office another. Once the store knew I had contacted Head Office they soon changed their tune .:)

kerrypn

No we don't, and I don't know how I expect them to put it right but just feel they ought to do something as this was a new prescription so she has been wearing inappropriate glasses for over a month which may have damaged her eyes further.

I am so cross :mad:

I am very tempted to refer it to the GOC I am so unhappy. Its like getting a presciption from your doctor for antibiotics and the chemist refusing to give them to you for a month.

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate all help offered

I will be on to head office in the morning thank you

mum2one

I would def ring the head office, and also ring your local primary care trust as they may well want to get involved as the prescription is done from the hospital. xx

kerrypn

Ooh good idea mumofone, hadn't thought about that, will definitely get in touch with the opthamologist's office tomorrow to inform them, thank you

I just cannot believe that the person responsible for the store has refused to deal with me on the phone! They have left it to the sales staff which I think is unacceptable.

mandi

When you call Head Office ask for a contact name, tell the person you want the matter sorted out immediately with a full explanation of events . Explain that both the dispensing optician and store manager are refusing to cooperate .



I can understand why your have every right to be upset kerrypn.

Good Luck,

kerrypn

Thank you Mandi, I will do that tomorrow and will update the thread accordingly. They will be sorry they didnt speak to me on the phone tomorrow I can tell you because I take the hard line on the phone but in person I am vicious! (I mean with words by the way not aggressive!)

My poor daughter though

tidus

Just to reassure you, your daughters sight will not be "damaged" by wearing her old prescription for a little longer than would otherwise be the case. GOC etc won't be interested in this in the slightest.

I'd contact the head office, but please don't take this out on the staff at the second store. I don't know why the first store closed, but its a pretty safe assumption that it wasn't the fault of the staff in the second store! It sounds like something has gone wrong in transferring the jobs over - perhaps they have had to start again from scratch?

Scrummymummy_2

One of my sons used to get prescriptions directly from the hospital opthamologist. Give them a ring and explain what has happened. They will probably be happy to issue you with another prescription so that you can then obtain more glasses from another optician while you are trying to sort the whole mess out. Small children usually need more than one pair anyway, and we never had a problem with getting a spare pair.