OPTICIAN - can I just change ds's optician (NHS glasses)?

[Giuliettatoday]

Hi there,
sorry if my question is a bit daft, but can I just change my child's optician if I want to?

The one we went to before only sees people by appointment on specific days and is in another town - not too far away but a bus ride, and we have 3 local opticians here (don't know why I didn't go there in the first place - apart from one who didn't "do" NHS glasses, even the cheapest ones incurred at least a £40 surcharge. But now there's a new one and there's also a smaller one round the corner).

My ds has NHS glasses (free ones) which broke, he is now due for an eye check anyway - the hospital discharged him but advised yearly checks.

The broken glasses are with the optician in the other town at the moment but we are finding it difficult to arrange an appointment without taking ds out of school or dh taking time of work, which surely wouldn't be the case with a more local optician.

Ok to cut a long story short, can I demand from the current optician to get all the details and go to another optician? I think it should be possible but I really don't know how the system works.

Thanks for advice!!

yes you can go anywhere you want to, you can even go to one for an eye test then somewhere else with your voucher if dc needs glasses. It is not like gp.

Just like you can take prescription to any chemist (bit more complicated if you have signed up for gp collection service) and in theory you can go to any dentist (if you could find one that would take you on)

Yes. Any opticians who have tested your eyes has to give you a copy of the prescription if you ask for it, and the NHS voucher if applicable, so that you can get the glasses made up anywhere. If you need a new eye test, you can go anywhere, ditto. And contrary to what you may be told, children are not restricted to one pair of glasses a year, they get a new set whenever their prescription changes.