What is your approach to dispensing prescriptions issued by other practices?

10 July 2018
Summer 2018

A panel of College members grapple with a controversial question

Francesca Marchetti MCOptom

Self-employed optometrist, Coventry

With every Rx requested, the assumption is that the patient is going to get their spectacles elsewhere. To be honest, they usually do. I always advise them that it’s best to purchase their spectacles at the place they had their eyes tested, and I always give them the College statement about dispensing spectacles elsewhere: “Patients have a right to have their prescriptions dispensed where they choose.” However, I would never refuse to dispense an ‘outside Rx’ and am happy to accept the consequences if something doesn’t quite work out correctly.

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Related further reading

A patient wants to purchase a pair of spectacles using a prescription generated from an overseas app on his smartphone. What would you do?

Dispensing of a complex prescription in your absence.

Non tolerance to an outside prescription. What would you do?