Low-dose atropine and supply to patients

29 October 2026
Autumn 2026

Ensuring suitable governance will protect children’s long-term vision, writes Dr Paramdeep Bilkhu MCOptom.

The licensing of the UK’s first low-dose atropine (LDA: 0.01%) eye drop in November 2025 is a milestone for childhood myopia management (COptom, 2025). For the first time, a treatment to slow myopia progression is available as a licensed product. A growing number of members have contacted the College advice line, keen to offer it to patients but unsure of how to supply it in practice – particularly those who are not independent prescribers (IPs). The answer sits in a corner of medicines legislation that is easy to misread, so it is worth setting out clearly.

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