Jumping between private and NHS for lenses

[Mas-tech]

I decided to bite the bullet and go to specsavers for my checkup as the Royal Berkshire messed around with my appointment (see previous post) and turns out I got better vision with sclerals than my RGPs. The hospital has now booked my check-up for next month, if I provide them my scleral perscription could I buy my sclerals through the NHS? As it will be a lot cheaper that way, my sclerals will cost around £300ish at Specsavers.

[Lia Williams]

There are lots of different types of contact lenses that can be prescribed for keratoconus and it might not be that all sclerals are better that all RGPs for your eyes. It could be that the improvement in vision is due to the fact that your current lenses are old and the prescription needs to be updated.

I suspect that if you had already bought the scleral lenses, and they were seen to be a good fit, then it is likely that they would prescribe similar lenses in the future. As you haven't got the scleral lenses the hospital won't be able to tell whether or not they are a good fit and I doubt if they would issue lenses to someone's prescription.

Lia

[brian-ire]

I can't imagine a hospital being willing to do this even though I've had many occasions where a hospital or optometrist has gone above and beyond when it comes to ordering via the NHS.