Eye care at home made simple

Specsavers’ home-visiting service makes sure that people who struggle to leave their homes unaccompanied are not forgotten, as they bring the optician to them

DID you know that eye care is available in your own home? According to a recent YouGov survey*, 58% of over 50s in the UK are unaware that people can have their eyes tested at home, or in sheltered accommodation or care homes. This applies to people who cannot visit a high street optician unaccompanied due to a physical or mental illness or disability. The eye tests are funded by the NHS for those people who are eligible. Specsavers is prepared to go the distance to protect the nation’s eye health with their home-visiting service. More than two million people in the UK are living with sight loss, and nearly 40% of them, most of whom are aged over 70, could have their sight improved by wearing correctly prescribed glasses. Yet only one in three people who are eligible for a free NHS-funded home eye test are currently benefiting from this amazing service.

About Specsavers home visits

Home eye tests from Specsavers are carried out with the same care and attention as in a Specsavers store. You can request a home visit for yourself or on behalf of someone else and they’ll come at a time that is convenient for you. If the eye test shows that you need glasses, Specsavers’ team will help you choose and try on new glasses from a range of 160 different styles. Specsavers’ aim is to improve the overall confidence of older people, helping them to look good and feel good too. What’s more, if you qualify for NHS funding, you may also be eligible for free glasses from their £19-£49 range.

A caring partnership

Housebound customers can also take advantage of Specsavers’ partnership with Royal Voluntary Service, whose trusted volunteers can support their clients at home during their eye tests. This year the partnership will see the charity’s 18,000 volunteers mobilised to inform thousands of eligible UK residents about Specsavers’ home-visiting service. Stella Green, 99, is a Specsavers home visits customer. Macular degeneration and cataracts have left her with impaired vision, which means she needs more support at home, so she’s visited weekly by Royal Voluntary Service volunteer John Aylward. Stella says that she was impressed by the eye test offered by the Specsavers home-visiting team: ‘The test was very thorough, and it was really comfortable having it in my own home. Having them come to see me makes me feel like a star and that I’m very important!’