Looking for an optom who wants to do optics better

Since I’ve opened Eyeye I have used 2 optometrists that I know and trust to provide cover when I’ve taken time off. We use them because we share values, they are thorough and our patients like them. Not surprisingly, because they are good, they don’t have much availability.

Like many businesses in the first 3 years I have not been off much but aspire to take a bit more leave in the future. So, I need to widen my pool, but I don’t believe going to a locum agency is the answer.

Why? Well, there are some great locum opticians, but there are some who I would not want working in my business and others who I would not want working in anyone’s business.

In some respects it should be easy to find an optometrist as the way we work avoids some of the key issues fellow professionals find working in many opticians. The main dissatisfactions optometrists have elsewhere are: 1. That they don’t have long enough appointments; 2. They are under pressure to “convert” eye tests into sales and up-sell additional products and services. Here we have 45 minutes with a patient (versus industry standard of 20-25 minutes) and up-front pricing with no up-selling.

The dominance of the 20-25 minute (fully booked, running late) diary, day in day out, means that some optometrists don’t know it does not have to be like that. Specsavers are so big that their way of doing things is the dominant one, but don’t kid yourselves that this means it is multiple bad and independent good. When I locumed I went to some independents that I flat out refused to go to again because of their attitude, poor equipment and over-filled diary.

Attitude is everything in this kind of work and when I am teaching under-graduate optometrists you see good and bad signs even in the early weeks of their path to qualification. In the past I have worked in optom development and observed lots of eye tests. The best optoms were always the ones who wanted to be watched and get feedback, yet many did everything possible to avoid being watched!

We want someone who is interested in our aim to do optics better. This is based on the New Economic Forum’s 5 ways to wellbeing, which are:

We take notice; We connect; Always learning; We’re Active; We give (see our website for more on each of these https://www.eyeyesheffield.co.uk/the-story-of-better

If you are in optics please feel free to share this and we’ll see who get in touch.