To be really worried the NHS will say no more glasses for my DD?

[DontTakeThemAway]

DD is 8 and got glasses in November 2021. She has an eye condition which was picked up by the health visitors at her 10mo check and she’s been under a consultant ever since. She had surgery in December 2020 to try and help the condition (she’ll never get rid of it) and it helped a bit but not a lot, so the consultant said glasses was the next stage to try before another operation.
The prescription itself is tiny (+0.75 in each eye) but there’s a special coating on the lenses that apparently really helps the eye condition - I think it's the extra thin plus anti glare/reflect.

It’s worked, because I have a completely different child with glasses than without. No more silly accidents in the school playground, no more falling over as we walk to school or anywhere, no more having to take the car everywhere as she can be trusted to walk and look around and see things! She’s also gone up 6 bookbands at school and is well on her way to being pulled off the scheme completely. Her confidence has also improved as well, so much so she put herself forward for school council this year (didn’t get it but it’s a massive improvement for her to actually go for it!)

She was without her glasses for 2 weeks in the summer when they broke and she was back to falling constantly; lots of grazed knees and bruised hands from falls. She had a nasty accident at holiday club where she fell down 3 concrete steps trying to walk between rooms (held in a different school to hers with portacabin classrooms and she needed to go from one portacabin to the hall and fell down the stairs) she was thankfully ok but an ambulance had to be called and she spent the night in hospital for a concussion and a broken arm. Again since having her glasses she’s completely fine and never had a repeat.

We had a checkup for her condition earlier this week and her consultant said her eyes have improved since having the glasses that she will now have to “justify” such a small prescription to NHS England. I told her all about the falls and the difference in my DD since getting her glasses and the consultant said “I know, if it was up to me she’d keep themwe just have to hope they agree".

I am literally at the point that I will do anything to have my DD keep her glasses. She loves her glasses, she tucks them into the case at night and says goodnight to them, if anyone says anything negative about them she replies “But at least I can see”. She also looks incredibly smart and grown up in her glasses.

Is there anything I can do to make sure she keeps her glasses? Or is this going to be something else I’m going to have to pay for? I will pay for it privately if needed but I'm a single parent so it will mean it comes from somewhere else to pay. I know the glasses are expensive to the NHS because we take the prescription to an optician and we always have to wait as it goes to the NHS for approval (usually wait 3-4 weeks instead of the standard 2 for her glasses).

Thank you, very interesting. Ds went straight in at a -4 so not much experience of lower prescriptions other than my own and I can only remember the ones I have paid for!

in that case as it’s a medical need then I hope it can be covered moving forward OP

I think people are focusing too much on the things and coating as the OP was quite vague about what is actually used in the glasses, so without knowing the full prescription it is impossible for people to really comment on cost and effectiveness.
Different condition but my daughter has specially tinted glasses. These aren't just regular sunglasses, she had to have tests with lots of different things to determine which were optimum for her to read text and they cost around £160 and that was with a discount from NHS but that didn't cover the full price of the lenses.

My DC with most significant issues is very short sighted, qualified for the VI level of voucher on the NHS which at the time would barely have covered the cost of an appointment. There were no free lenses and the cheapest made were so thick and heavy that our optician wouldn't use them on adults let alone a child. I remember asking them what they did where families couldn't pay and they sometimes were able to get charity support but not always. It was shocking and its worse now.

One of the others had an eye condition which sounds more like the condition the OP describes - not too severely abnormal on distance but at one point we thought they were dyspraxic due to clumsiness. Turned out to be a visual condition which resulted in flary vision and poor depth perception and was transformed by thin, coated lenses - suddenly the clumsiness disappeared as depth perception was supported.

Again not cheap but I was struck by how even at this low level of distance correction, thinner lenses sat on a child's face much better - less slipping down so they stayed in the correct place to sort out the vision.

@C8H10N4O2
My DC with most significant issues is very short sighted, qualified for the VI level of voucher on the NHS

Which voucher is this?

The main ones are A-J, and other than that are supplement and complex lens vouchers. I get voucher D plus complex lens voucher myself.

I don’t know of any NHS sight vouchers labelled “VI level”?

How much are her glasses? you should be able to get a second pair, a spare pair, on the nhs, quite easily without that much hassle.

@Quveas the OP was not very clear at all about the eye condition. From the way the post is worded, it sounds as if even the consultant can’t prove that the glasses will be justified in future.

I don’t claim anywhere to know more than a consultant. But as an optician, I understand eyes, glasses and the NHS voucher system very well and thought I might be able to offer OP some helpful advice. I still can’t think of many conditions where +0.75 would make a lot of difference, and thinner lenses are unnecessary at this prescription.

It's illegal for online glasses retailers to fulfil a prescription for any under 16 year old, so that is a no go.

Select specs are £6 per pair plus postage. They come coated choice of frames and in a case. Hubby is an engineer and he welds . They stand up to him.

How did she break the previous glasses.is that the absolute cheapest or the cheapest with the frames she likes?

It is such a minor correction now that it's hard to believe that they help her to the extent prescribed. Do you think there is almost a placebo effect from wearing the glasses?

You make a strong case but I do think that, if her condition has been significantly improved with surgery, then the nhs has done its job. They do have to cut off somewhere. I have a pupil with very crooked teeth that seriously impact his confidence but he can't have braces on the nhs because the gap is less than that allowed for nhs treatment.

The glasses I would guess cost £150-200 which is just not doable even with saving up. how much were you planning to spend for Christmas could you ask for money towards glasses from family?

Just what every child wants for Christmas!

She seems to be attached to them and you could get her something else small. I know it's not ideal but I'm trying to help the OP with a back up plan incase the NHS say no.

I haven’t read all of the replies, so forgive me if I’m repeating advice. I work in optometry. Your daughter will get her lenses on the NHS if the optometrist says that she needs a prescription, I can’t imagine why anyone would have told you otherwise. It doesn’t matter if it’s the tiniest dioptre . 0.75 is enough for her to notice a difference without them. You definitely do not need thinner lenses. A standard 1.5 is going to be just fine. The coatings will make some difference, but honestly not a lot. The NHS Voucher A will not cover coatings, you can’t get any coatings on the NHS, but unless they’re exceptionally mean a practice will usually include a basic anti-reflective. What I will say is that optometry is likely (bar the multiples like Specsavers) to end up going the way of dentistry. There is no way an independent practice can survive on NHS patients, and there is no money whatsoever in children’s glasses and a lot of places don’t like seeing them at all.

I got ds glasses from Specsavers, his prescription is +75, when he was 16 or under we got a pair free as well & free replacements for his NHS nominated pair (he lost them 3 times) His frames & lenses were free I just paid for the non reflective coating on them.

She's had 3 pairs this year

She needs to be more careful of them. My DC wears glasses and we’ve had one or two repairs in 7 years.

Like others, I think your costs are off if you do have to pay for them.

But I hope you don’t.

Can you post the actual prescription? I’m an optometrist and the facts as you’ve presented them so far don’t make sense.

You definitely don’t need thinner lenses for +0.75 though - it won’t make any difference.

You can't get glasses for children online sadly, only adults, we have looked. Both my sons wear glasses, one for just close up work but the other was really bad, wore glasses since he was 5 and was under the eye hospital for a while.

OP are you visiting an independent optician? Have you shopped around for frames at places like Specsavers? Ds2 has thinned lenses because the weight of the lenses plus the frames would have been too heavy on his little nose. He also has anti-scratch and anti-glare because he is a child who might scratch his glasses.

Vision Express top up an NHS voucher with some more money toward it I believe. At times Ds2's glasses have cost £100 with the voucher depending on the frame. As your eye test is done at the hospital then shopping around for frames is easier. If you have their eyes tested at one optician and then can't find frames they need to write down the voucher code on the prescription for the dispensing optician.

Also confused about the details given so far, and the supposed 'need' for thinning - I don't believe it'd make much difference to lenses of this prescription.
Have you been to Specsavers to find out how much they'd charge? (even if you don't get any NHS vouchers)
The prices quoted are more than I've ever paid for glasses (incl much stronger prescriptions and more complex treatments), over many decades.

She’s obviously not as careful with them as she could be with that many repairs. One of mine has had glasses since they were small and in over 10 years they’ve only once been totally damaged, the only other repairs were things like nose pads. I would suggest she looks for more resilient frames (acetate ones without nose pads worked for us as that was the issue, if she snaps them then a flex type). If they are so important she needs to treasure them.

Blimey, I’ve worn glasses since I was 6 and never got through 3 pairs a year! It does sound like she needs to be a bit more careful with them to start with.
Secondly, I pay for the highest grade of thinning and that adds £180 to the cost so your costings sound off. You’d only need basis thinning (if any at all) and that’s c£60.

That’s at vision express btw

The OP said that the consultant said "if it was up to me she’d keep them". That seems rather unambiguous. Since the consultant is recommending the prescription I don't think anyone else can comment that it isn't needed. Just because a bunch of strangers on the internet think she doesn't need them doesn't really mean a lot. The OP asked for advice on how she might try to ensure that her daughter gets the prescription the consultant is advising, not how to buy different cheaper glasses. I am going to assume that the consultant is not stupid and if they were happy that a different prescription which cost less was the appropriate one, that is the prescriptionthat they would have given and would have told the OP that.

I hope the NHS pays for it because even one pair is a lot of money especially for someone on a single income. However I have been wearing glasses since I was 9 and I think they only needed repairs once or twice in my whole childhood so I agree with PP she needs to be more careful.

Sometimes with free things people forget someone is paying for it somewhere else and they don't take as much care as they should with it. Perhaps if you explain to her without being too heavy, that you've had to spend a lot on these so you'd like her to try her best to be careful.

Are they prism lenses? One on mine has them - they're expensive.