Porthcawl optometrist helps ease pressure on the NHS People in Porthcawl no longer need to visit their GP to get a prescription for eye medication, thanks to a local optometrist who has completed a postgraduate course in Independent Prescribing. Claire Edwards, store director at Specsavers in Porthcawl, completed | more
Lockdown ‘Open for Care’ communications win award
Specsavers marketing, PR and social media campaign in 2020 has won the ‘Best Proactive Healthcare/Pharma Comms during Covid-19’ award, in the annual PR Week Awards. The answer was the Open for Care programme. Specsavers created | more
The impact of poor vision on mental health
Families concerned about the mental health of elderly relatives in lockdown are being encouraged to check that worsening vision is not hampering their ability to cope while living alone. The call comes from optometrist Jason | more
Additional training on the early signs of brain tumours
610 Specsavers optometrists – qualified or in training – attended a lecture and discussion by Lorcan Butler of the Brain Tumour Charity on Monday 25 January and Wednesday 3 February. Lorcan, an optometrist and dispensing optician himself was the | more
Sight loss following tree-surgery fall
A 63-year-old man from Epping Forest, Essex has praised his optometrist after he identified signs of a serious eye condition and helped save him from potentially permanent sight loss during first lockdown. Retiree John Brotherton | more
Pre-reg saves her own father’s sight
Derek Begley narrowly avoided permanent sight loss after mentioning a sore eye to his daughter, who happens to be training at Specsavers. Victoria Begley, a pre-registration optometrist in Cheshire Oaks, made her usual phone call | more
Dispensing during Covid-19
Change has happened so quickly in the last year, that we’ve barely had time to process all we are going through as a profession. We have had to adapt like never before so that we | more
Oar-some challenge for optometrist Martin
Optometrist Martin Skehan is set to swap his test room for the Atlantic Ocean as he plans to take on the world’s toughest row, the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge Whisky Atlantic Challenge, in a boat with his visually impaired friend Stuart and two | more
Looking after the mental health of your colleagues
To help her team deal with day to day mental health issues seen in a busy optical practice, Lucy Eva, shared her learnings from an Invictus Trust accredited mental health course. | more
Three career changes and two redundancies led to one calling
From optical assistant to store director and qualified dispensing optician. Laura tells her inspirational story. Laura Stallerbrass was made redundant twice in six months before finding a job at her local opticians. Now she has climbed the ranks | more