Bad D&A!

EvilBoris

I thought I'd come clear some things up here , I work in optical retail.
Any optician will happily give you a copy of your prescription in writing, it is your property, they might get a little funny about it, they often do for some reason.
but the contact lens specification is something totally different, just remember that.
What D&A have told you is correct, a whole bunch of GOC legislations have come into effect VERY recently (or are about to) which now means that the opticians cannot legally supply you with lenses until an optometrist/contact lens optician has written a valid contact lens specification.

They cannot do this until they are [in their professional opinion] happy with the condition the lenses leave your eyes in. Because if they supply you with lenses that fit poorly or are bad for your eyes in other ways and they cause damage to your eyes, that optician is open to being sued. These legislations are here in place to provide protection for both contact lens wearers and the optician who has issued the prescription. As you may be aware a lot of online contact lens retailers require you to enter the GOC number of the person who provided the specifications, now if for whatever reason something goes hideously wrong with someone’s contact lenses and they end up going blind or causing other irreparable damage, who are they going to sue? The person who said it was ok for them to wear lenses.
As you can imagine the whole internet Contact lens suppliers has made most optometrists a little hesitant about dishing out the specifications and thusly has caused these legislations to be created, as the majority of people who end up going off with their prescription to get lenses online will try to avoid ever having a check-up again.

You wouldn't believe the amount of morons I have to deal with on a daily basis who have had been wearing a pair of daily lenses for a week/month(s) or who have been sleeping in the same set of lenses without cleaning for weeks on end. It is severely dangerous and costs many people their sight.
Like I said these legislations have been put in place to protect people who have worn lenses previously and people who are about to start wearing them, part of these new regulations require that you also need to have a contact lens check every 12 months in order to be supplied with lenses.

Now obviously if you have worn contact lenses before, either from D&A or from another high street chain and had all of your regular checks, your optometrist will be happy that the lenses they have provided you with are all A-ok for your eyes. For instance if you had been previously wearing lensesSpecSavers, then they should of been able to provide a valid specification then the D&A optician could of verified it made amendments and whatnot.

It might seem like they are ripping you off asking you to come back for a 3 month check and pay £30 a month, but the direct debit scheme they offer is 100% free of contractual obligation, it can be cancelled or suspended at any time and whilst you are on the scheme (either actively paying you DD or even with the scheme suspended), you are entitled to unlimited free checks.

Now bearing in mind you legally HAVE to have a contact lens check at least once a year at £30+ a pop (and even more if you have problems) paying that extra couple of quid premium for buying them in a store instead of online isn't going to make any difference to your overall price in the long term. I think there have been articles about the whole aftercare scenario @ D&A , when you consider that a qualified optometrist is being paid £40+ per hour to do their job, you'll soon realise that these companies aren't trying to make money from their checkups, but just doing what is required of them to keep them in line with the GOC and cover the costs of doing so.


ooof that was a long old post, I hope that makes it clearer on the reasoning behind the checkups and stuff. If you have any questions feel free to ask

mishkanorman

great post !

you may want to edit it so 'sight' is spelt correctly, so you will be taken seriously


mishka

EvilBoris

Whoops!

Thankye

Noctu

EvilBoris, very interesting info, thank you.

Could I ask where I could find this new law? I'm not doubting its existence, but just for my own records

EvilBoris

I think this contains a good proportion of what I have been trying to explain.
http://www.optical.org/index_files/aboutus/documents/C0507-Annex3.pdf

Kernow_Kid

Just a quick update:

We gave up on D&A in the end, Specsavers have got a new Optomerist in and hes a lot better than the last one - much more chatty and informative.

The OH has now found that she has a slight astigmatism in one eye, thus causing the problems with her contacts.

The SS Optician found this and changed her prescrption to aspherics. She can now see much better.

In all its taken 14 rechecks to get it right, but shes now happy.

Specsavers got it right after 4 tries, so I can understand opticians not wanting to give out the Contact Lens Prescription for us to buy online until its exactly right.

But I will say this: D&A were rubbish!
They were not interested in getting the prescription right as soon as they realised she didn't want to buy from them.
9 attempts, and each one as bad as other. Some so bad that her feet were blurry! And the optician telling her to drive home and her sight would get better in a short while!

The 3 month wait is fair, but D&A wanting £90 for this is ridiculous.

Thanks for all your comments, and I hope you all have better luck than us.
K Kid

gregg1

Kernow_Kid wrote: »

Just a quick update:

We gave up on D&A in the end, Specsavers have got a new Optomerist in and hes a lot better than the last one - much more chatty and informative.

The OH has now found that she has a slight astigmatism in one eye, thus causing the problems with her contacts.

The SS Optician found this and changed her prescrption to aspherics. She can now see much better.

In all its taken 14 rechecks to get it right, but shes now happy.

Specsavers got it right after 4 tries, so I can understand opticians not wanting to give out the Contact Lens Prescription for us to buy online until its exactly right.

But I will say this: D&A were rubbish!
They were not interested in getting the prescription right as soon as they realised she didn't want to buy from them.
9 attempts, and each one as bad as other. Some so bad that her feet were blurry! And the optician telling her to drive home and her sight would get better in a short while!

The 3 month wait is fair, but D&A wanting £90 for this is ridiculous.

Thanks for all your comments, and I hope you all have better luck than us.
K Kid

you are right, £90 is a ridiculous amount to have to pay - D & A are actively trying to prevent people from buying cheaper lenses online as obviously this is bad for their business. I would be more than happy to pay for an annual contact lens check and fitting service but at a fair price and one which did not tie me into a 3 month contract costing me £90 before I received my prescription. I have had endless problems with D & A and they constantly get my prescription wrong along with my OH and daughter's as well! They really do need to get their act together - if they are going to charge premium rates they should be offering a premium service!

nedmundo

How else do you propose that they cover their costs? I don't see why they would want to take on the responsibility for fitting your lenses and make a loss at the same time.

gregg1

nedmundo wrote: »

How else do you propose that they cover their costs? I don't see why they would want to take on the responsibility for fitting your lenses and make a loss at the same time.

If you read my post you will see that I am quite prepared to pay a reasonable amount for the check up but £90 is NOT a reasonable amount. Are you saying that anything less than £90 equates to them making a loss? I do not believe that for one moment.

nedmundo

This may sound quite unbelieveable to you, but by the time overheads are taken into acccount, each appointment costs at least £30 to operate. A typical fitting will require an initial appointment to take measurements, discuss which modality of lens wear is most suitable, insert those lenses (if in stock on that day), review again after an hour or two and an instruction session for handling, cleaning etc. Usually a follow up appointment after a week or 10 days and again after 1 to 3 months are required to ensure the lenses worn are causing no adverse effects.

If you factor in the cost of the lenses and solutions and VAT, £90 for the 1st 3 months starts to look very reasonable to you and a loss making exercise to them, which is why most Opticians insist on minimum 12 months contract to cover the initial start up costs. Maybe then, they may even make a profit!

BTW, I ought say that I have no connection with D & A or any other Multiple company for that matter. I'm just trying to educate folks as to the realities of the true costs for the products/services which people seem to expect and not value very highly. I also ought to say that qualified Optometrists don't earn £40 per hour - if only!