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Getting an eye test but not buying glasses
This is probably a stupid question, but can i go to - say - Specsavers and get an eye test but not buy glasses from them?
I'm in Scotland so eyetests are free, and I can just imagine they wouldn't be very happy about it?
I want to be able to get my prescription and get the glasses from one of the cheap online places, for I am as poor as a church mouse at the mo.
I'm in Scotland so eyetests are free, and I can just imagine they wouldn't be very happy about it?
I want to be able to get my prescription and get the glasses from one of the cheap online places, for I am as poor as a church mouse at the mo.
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They may be free to you, but that doesn't mean that the optician does them for nothing. They'll claim a fee from the authorities.
I always ask for a copy of my prescription "for my records" which gives sufficient reason to save any embarrassment when asking. It's actually true as I keep a spreadsheet of the changes over the years.
I use Vision Express.They are ok.I told them i'd 'be in touch'.
They've got their fee,that's the main thing.:)
In a way I feel slightly sorry for the opticians, and then I punch myself and remember they've been ripping us off for years in selling us shaped plastic for over a ton.
Maybe the NHS should provide a DIY home eye test!!
It's extra information that isn't legally required to be on the prescription, so they don't usually put it on there.
You'll need your PD measurement if you order glasses online.
You can measure this at home if you have someone else to do it.
He then went out and bought two pairs of cheap reading glasses of different strengths and swapped one of the lenses over from one pair to the other to match the requirements of the prescription.
OK, so he ended up with one pair of glasses which were completely useless, but the other pair were as his own prescription. Still much cheaper than buying glasses from an optician.
Win, win, I think
What I don't understand is if its legal requirement to give the customer their prescription why are they allowed to leave out the PD ?
I went as I'd been having migraines, told them that in advance I only wanted eye test!
As my prescription hadn't changed I didn't get the hard sell.
However a UK prescription is not legally required to include the PD measurement. A prescription that doesn't show the PD measurement is therefore completely legal and as such they are meeting their legal obligations in handing it to you.
Including the PD on the prescription would be doing more than the law required. They can do so if they want, or they can refuse, or they can charge a fee for doing so. All options are perfectly acceptable and legal.
Or, indeed, a ruler and a mirror. Plus the ability to read numbers backwards!
That would only work for the minority of people who are long-sighted. Off the shelf reading glasses are usually small positive values of correction to adjust normally sighted eyes for close vision. Short-sighted people need negative correction. Those lenses are also only simple ones so won't correct for any astigmatism.
" I wouldn't dare buy glasses unless my wife/husband/partner is here to see them,so I will just take the prescription for now please "