UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Ok don't want to worry too many people here especially the new friends we have, just very confused!!!

Am just rather concerned with a few recent newbie posts stating that they found out they had KC by being seen at Specsavers? Hhmm wasn't there supposed to be a consultants diagnosis in there somewhere?? Aren't they supposed to be keeping it civilised and sending new patients to their GP for a hospital referral to make sure?

After recently reading about a member being misdiagnosed a long time ago and only now finding out she doesn't have KC i am confused by the whole thing! My first optometrist was very reluctant to tell me anything about my eyesight and sent me to my GP asking for a referral to the eye clinic in the hospital.

It is ok for new patients to be tried with RGP lenses but someone does have to actually look at their eyes at some point and make sure that they do in fact have KC?! Or did i just read everything wrong here?

Hmmm I think its 6 and one and half a dozen of the other.

There is no set way here.....but bear in mind I also was alerted to KC at SpecSavers by a newly qualified Optometrist......and was then refered back to my DR to get me to an Optham....as the guy at SpecSavers said "he strongly suspects I have KC, although very Mild".

Whilst it would be ideal that a person gets seen to by a qualfied body; the real world is such, that it doesnt happen always......

J

I thought an optom mentioned here once that an optom got severly disciplined for saying a young girls vision change was because she was pregnant. The child was a teenager and her mother was completely taken aback. It was later shown the optom was correct, but they were disciplined for making what was a diagnoses which they were not allowed to make.

Could be totally wrong, but I thought the reasons i got reffered in 1987 and again in 2004 by optoms to the hospital because they were not allowed to make a diagnoses.

Que Lynn and Ali to put us straight on this

Hehe Graham...

Here I be!

OKay... as I said on another thread.. the situation re diagnosis is changing. We optoms are now allowed more leeway as to telling people what conditions they have.

Specsavers... let me try and explain the UK situation re optometry. The big multiples are really mainly interested in profit. They like fast eye exam throughput leading to sales of spectacles - so if an optom spends a long time fitting a KC patient - its not ideal, as they often do not really charge much for chair time.

However, this does not mean that the optometrists that do the eye exams are any less professional or capable than anyone else. So - an optom may well be able to diagnose you have KC and tell you that.. but the company policy in that practice may be such that fitting you with contacts is not cost effective - therefore they may not want to do it.

You also have to remember that many of the big multiple opticians also franchise out and the franchisee may well be interested in KC - this seems to be the case in Wales where we have quite a few KC friendly Specsaver optoms joining our list.

If one generalises, one could say that economically speaking, multiples are not that interested in the extended time it takes to fit KC and that standard disposables are not usually suitable for KC. This does not automatically mean that all multiples are "bad" for KC.

Lynn

Who's Graham?

I think historically the big multiples have caused many of us problems and there are probably more anti multiples posts than pro.

Just like any large organisation there is always good and bad.

Perhaps they would still make money from us as many of are in and out of the optms chair every couple of months so are more guarenteed repeat business if we are well looked after.

Groooannnnn sorry Gareth lol.... I have no idea where Graham came from !

No it wouldn't make any difference Gareth... large multiples like Speccy's often give away their chair time cheaply in order to pull people in for sales. KC patients often need multiple appointments merely to confirm a prescription or to explain things more thoroughly. Certainly they need loads more chair time for contact lens fittings. So more chair time without a "conversion" to glasses means less sales per "slot". This is pure economics ... and yes I know this seems wrong but the Govnt has colluded for YEARS in what we call in optics the cross subsidy. The Govnt does not pay us anywhere near the going rate for the job for NHS sight tests becasue we claw back the money from private sales of spectacles.

It is this cycle that has been broken in Scotland. The Scottish Parliament passed laws so that optoms there actually get paid properly for examining peoples eyes, In England we still have to claw back money from private sales to subsidise the NHS tests.

I can't pretend to try and explain all this in a few posts... this all dates back to the birth of the NHS is the 50's. Optometry has always been partly privatised.

Lynn

Best steer clear of the NHS details before we break forum rules and get in to politics

Hehe...

I am not passing judgement here Gareth - just explaining how it is!

The background to optics in the UK is incredibly complicated and it is just the way it has evolved. It makes explaining it very difficult hehe!

I think I understand the situation with optometrists giving an opinion of an eye condition, but I still agree with Sweet: surely somebody with Keratoconus, or any other eye condition, needs a referral to see an ophthalmologist as soon as possible after the condition has been diagnosed or suspected.

Is this just the wistful meandering of an aged Scot, or does this oldfashioned view of the world still have some virtue?

Andrew