13 September 2024
The Optometric Fees Negotiating Committee (OFNC) is encouraging General Ophthalmic Services (GOS) contractors to complete a survey that will provide valuable information to support negotiations with NHS England.
The information gathered through the survey will be used by the OFNC – which is the national negotiating body for eye care in England – to argue for an increase to the GOS sight test fee.
A press release from the OFNC explained that a previous survey in 2022 asked GOS contractors about the time and costs associated with providing a GOS sight test.
“This information was crucial in providing a true picture of the UK optical sector.
To continue this engagement and build upon this data, we are now conducting a new survey to gather evidence on how the last two years have impacted costs,” the press release highlighted.
Topics covered within the survey include the proportion of sight tests that are GOS, future plans for GOS sight test delivery and changes to salary, locum, equipment, loan and premises costs over the past two years
The OFNC explained that information gathered through the survey will have a direct effect on its submission to NHS England outlining why the GOS fee should increase.
The negotiating body added that responses will be treated in “strict confidence,” with only aggregated data shared with NHS England.
“OFNC encourage all business owners to take this opportunity to have their say on what the UK optical sector looks like in 2024,” the statement emphasised.
The survey, which takes around 10 minutes to complete, can be accessed through the following link. The survey closes at 5pm on Monday 30 September.
Comments (2)
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Anonymous20 September 2024
Any GOS increases have been outstripped by inflation. A 14% increase is 1% a year. May be best to do some economic research before commenting. Also, it makes it more difficult to argue for a fee increase if companies are only charging £25 for a test. Giving £10 eye tests and free eye test offers. Realistically the industry needs to be charging a lot more. We should charge for example £60 to £80 and give more chair time to the patient instead of 20 minute sight tests. This would allow us to discuss other things in more depth such as lifestyle advice. It would allow more time to do referrals in the room and have a discussion about what the patient wants to get out of glasses/contact lenses. Charging what the industry does now is a loss leader, especially with many patients opting to buy online.
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Anonymous17 September 2024
Certain profession have recently had a double digit percentage increase. Are we next in line?...it's good to dream!
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