NHS optician in London for checking eye tracking/convergence insufficiency

[Usernamealreadyexists]

I'd be very grateful for recommendations for NHS practices that test for tracking issues. DS is 8 and is struggling with reading as he skips words. Many thanks.

NHS tests will incorporate basic eye muscle checks (so checks for squints/latent squints and convergence). It's a good starting point, there can be a few easily detected visual problems that can cause reading issues.
If you want more detailed checks done, you'd need to pay. The NHS only pay us around £20 for an eye exam, financially it wouldn't make sense for anyone to do a more detailed assessment.

We went to an Behavioural Optometrist - was around £70 and he gave us exercises which have helped.

Later on we asked our OT/Physio NHS team to refer (paediatrics were asked but could not find the right person to refer to) as they had identified he had some issues with tracking etc.

At our local children's hospital we now see the head orthoptist who has done a great job and identified saccadic problems - again we do simple exercises via eye can lean website and with pens and marbles!

She also provided advice to school for classroom use about reading, class position, blackboard use, bold lined paper etc.

We see her 6 monthly for review.

We did go round in circles with NHS, as got referral to optician first and she could not assess for occular muscle issues.

Good luck OP.

BABO website has list of UK private practitioners.