03 April 2020
There will be no increase to the General Ophthalmic Services (GOS) fees in England for a fifth consecutive year, the Government has announced.
Describing the freeze as “a difficult decision,” the Department of Health and Social Care said that it reflected “the lack of available evidence about any impact on NHS sight test numbers or optical businesses” as a result of fees being frozen since 2016.
The Optical Fees Negotiating Committee (OFNC) had bid for what it called a “reasonable and affordable” increase of at least 2.5% in GOS fees this year, in line with wider investment in NHS care.
On learning the news, the organisation emphasised to the Government that the freeze is not justified on the evidence and it will therefore have to be imposed without its agreement.
While the OFNC highlights that the profession is focused on protecting patients and supporting the NHS through the coronavirus crisis currently, it confirmed that it had written back to the Department of Health and Social Care about the “offhand treatment of primary eye care services.”
“The OFNC made absolutely clear to NHS England that the ongoing freeze in GOS fees is not in patients’ best long-term interests, with an even greater risk that NHS eye care will be unviable for some communities,” chair of the OFNC, Paul Carroll, emphasised.
He added: “The Government’s fee letter does not bear any relation to discussions the OFNC has had with NHS England and our response sets out to correct the record. In the meantime, a serious injustice has been done to the primary eye care sector and eye care patients. The trust and goodwill of a loyal workforce, who will be key to delivering the Outpatient Transformation Programme and relieving long term pressures on hospitals, has been further eroded.”
It has been confirmed that CET fees and pre-registration grants will rise by 2% in 2020–2021.
Comments (3)
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Anonymous08 April 2020
If NHS England ever wakes up and smells the coffee and asks us to help take the pressure off NHS Hospital eye departments in a Nationally coherent and non-post code lottery way - I for one will totally ignore them like they've ignored us for the last 20+ years. They can take a running jump. I'll leave that to Specsavers performers who are used to loss leader fees.
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Anonymous04 April 2020
I think we need to be resigned to no further increase in fees ever. All the time optometrist offer undervalued sight test fees, we are digging our own grave.
And if we really kick up a fuss, it'll just go out to tender and play into the hands of Specsavers. Shame on all who work for such companies.
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Anonymous04 April 2020
No surprise there then. Whilst there are Optoms who choose to work for Specsavers, Tescos, Vision Express, Boots etc who frequently offer free or cut-price sight tests, why would they increase it? We are stuck between a rock and a hard place: there aren't enough Independent Optoms to take "industrial action" (and I'm no leftie) and if we did, the multiples will gobble up even more market share. Too many brainless optoms working for multiples who don't give a sh!t what the NHS pays as long as they get their pay at the end of the month by over flogging specs.
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