COVID-19 Update:
Hello to all our friends and patients, we hope that you and your families have kept well.
Our priority is to keep all patients and staff safe and well. We aim to remain open and continue to provide care to those that need it.
We have adapted well to the new way of working and have outlined some changes below so you will be best prepared for your appointment.
Before visiting:
- If you need to attend the practice for ANY reason, you will need to phone in advance and make an appointment. We will assess your needs to see if a visit is required or if you can be helped remotely (video or telephone appointments available).
- Our staff have been busier than usual due to our rigid sanitising routine and processes designed to reduce the risk of COVID-19 entering our premises. We ask that you kindly be patient with us answering the phone and responding to e-mails.
- Appointments are now at a premium due to longer and fewer appointments. This enables us to maintain our stringent disinfection schedule and a limited number of people in the practice at any one time. We have recently had a large number of appointments where the patient has not turned up. This is a huge disappointment and has contributed to even longer waiting times. Please try and give us as much notice as possible if you won’t be able to attend.
On visiting:
- Do not attend if you have any COVID-19 symptoms.
- Do not attend if you have any cold or flu symptoms or other contagious illness.
- When you arrive for your appointment please knock on the door and we will attend to you as soon as possible.
- We will greet you at the door to check your temperature and ask you to use the hand sanitiser provided (automatic dispenser with no need to touch). If you can’t use hand sanitiser we will show you to a sink to wash your hands.
- We will also ask you a COVID Questionnaire on entering.
- Please wear a mask over your nose and mouth at all times. The optometrists and dispensers do have to get close to you and the surgical masks that they wear provide you with protection from them. We ask that you wear a mask properly to protect us.
- We kindly ask that you do not wear gloves as these can bring infection into the practice. If you are wearing gloves they will need to be sanitised on entry or we can provide you with a new pair.
- Please attend alone unless with a child or vulnerable adult.
- Please try not to bring too many bags/ shopping etc.
- In rare instances you may be asked to come back on another day if the tests you require or your dispense is taking longer than expected and is resulting in too many people in the practice or too much contact with a single person.
- In an effort to reduce the time in very close proximity we are encouraging all of our NHS patients to upgrade to having OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) scanning. This costs £20 and enables the optometrist to gain significantly more information than usual at a safe distance. This is already included in all of our private examinations.
Following the examination:
Although you are still able to browse our collection of frames, we have adapted a new method of dispensing where the dispenser will select frames for you to try based on your preferences, fit, size and budget. This ‘personal shopper’ approach has worked very well over the last few months and we have decided to continue with it going forward.
We may also offer to adjust the frames at the time of the dispense so that spectacles can be collected at the door without the need for a further fitting appointment. This may not be possible with some lenses.
We hope that you will understand and feel reassured by the many measures we have put in place to ensure the safety of all of our patients, including those most vulnerable. If you do not want to adhere to these protocols then we may be able to help you remotely or delay your appointment until it’s safe to do so.
If you would like to make an appointment, need telephone advice or would like further information on our protocols please call 01291 622269 or email hello@theopticalpeople.co.uk
We look forward to welcoming you with a big smile behind those glamorous masks!
