The aim of this article is to cover how elements of the routine primary care eye examination can be adapted for patients with visual impairment. While it isn’t intended as a guide to specific low vision assessments, it covers some straightforward elements of low vision practice that can be covered even within the confines of a General Ophthalmic Services sight test. Although the focus is on the Optometrist providing the eye examination, all the elements discussed here apart from refraction are within the scope of practice of the Dispensing Optician. 

Successfully managing people with visual loss within primary care will be very much down to appropriate division of these elements between the Optometrist and the Dispensing Optician in a way that is suitable for your own practice environment.