Independent opticians on Merthyr Road since 2009. A full eye examination takes forty minutes with the OCT scan included, £35 or free on the NHS if you qualify. Six hundred and forty frames from £49, chosen with a dispensing optician who writes the price on a card before you decide.
What we do
01
A full eye examination takes forty minutes: history and symptoms, vision and prescription, eye pressures, a look at the front and back of the eye, an OCT scan of the retina, and a proper explanation of what we found. £35 privately, free on the NHS if you qualify.
£35 for a private examination with the OCT scan included.
02
Children's eye tests are free on the NHS and we do them from about three years old, with picture charts, no reading needed, a parent in the room, and drops only when they tell us something we need to know. If glasses are needed, the NHS voucher covers a children's frame and lenses in full.
Free on the NHS for under-sixteens and under-nineteens in full-time education.
03
A contact lens assessment measures the shape of your eye and your tear film, tries lenses on you, and teaches you to put them in and take them out, with trial lenses to take home. £40, then a plan from £16 a month that includes the lenses, the aftercare and the solutions.
Assessment and fitting £40, including the trial lenses and the teach.
04
Six hundred and forty frames on the wall, from our own-brand range at £49 to independent designers, chosen with a dispensing optician who measures them to your face and explains the lens options and the price on a card before anything is ordered. Single-vision lenses from £45, varifocals from £120.
Frames from £49.
05
In Wales, children, over-sixties, people with diabetes or glaucoma, close relatives of glaucoma patients and people on certain benefits get a free NHS sight test, and many also get a voucher towards glasses. The voucher table on the prices page says what each is worth, and we take it in full against any frame.
NHS sight test free if you qualify.
06
A red or painful eye, a sudden shower of floaters or flashes, a shadow in your vision, a sudden blur, something in the eye: ring and you are seen the same day under the Wales Eye Care Service, free, without going to your GP or A&E first. If it needs the hospital we refer directly and ring ahead.
Free under the Wales Eye Care Service for anyone registered with a Welsh GP.
Prices
£35
Forty minutes, OCT scan included, printed prescription.
Free
Free. OCT scan £20 if you want it added.
£40
Assessment, trial pair and the teach. Aftercare free on a plan.
£49 from
Own range from £49. Six hundred and forty on the wall.
£45 from
A pair. Coatings £30. Thinner lenses priced on the card.
£120 from
A pair. Three designs; Josh says which you will notice.
NHS vouchers come off any frame and lenses in full. Contact lens plans from £16 a month. Adjustments, minor repairs and copies of your prescription are free.
How we work
Elin or Rhodri, and you can ask for either. Your records, scans and prescriptions stay here and you can have a copy of any of them.
The scanner that looks beneath the surface of the retina is part of every private examination at no extra charge, and £20 added to an NHS test. It is how early glaucoma and macular change are caught.
Frame, lenses and coatings written on a card with the total before you decide. Your prescription is yours to take anywhere, and we say so.
Picture charts, no drops unless needed, a parent in the room, and as long as it takes. Adults who hate the puff test can have the other one.
The OCT scan
An OCT scanner images the layers of the retina and the optic nerve in cross-section, like an ultrasound for the eye. It shows the early signs of glaucoma, macular degeneration and diabetic change years before they would show on a normal look, and it measures them so we can compare one visit to the next. It is included in every private examination and £20 on an NHS test, and from sixty we recommend it.
Frames
EverydayJosh
Italian acetate and spring hinges, forty shapes in six colours each, and the same lenses as the designer wall. Most of Whitchurch wears these.
DesignerJosh
Small makers from Denmark, Germany and Japan, from £140. Hand-finished acetate, titanium that weighs nothing, and shapes you will not see on the next table.
ChildrenVal
Bendy, light, with sprung hinges and a strap for the little ones, in colours they pick themselves. Covered in full by the NHS voucher, and replaced free in the first year.
Reviews
Elin found the start of glaucoma on the OCT scan at my sixty-three-year-old check-up, with no symptoms at all. Referred the same day, drops started within the month, pressure normal since. I had been going to a chain for twenty years and nobody had scanned me.
Our five-year-old would not sit still for anyone. Elin got on the floor with the picture cards and had her laughing in two minutes. Lazy eye caught, glasses on the NHS voucher, fitted so they actually stay on. Free re-fit when she grew.
First contact lenses at forty-two with astigmatism. Val spent forty minutes at the mirror with me and would not let me leave until I could do it twice. Toric dailies three days a week for the gym, £22 a month, aftercare free. Should have done it years ago.
Find us
Two minutes from Whitchurch station, the village car park behind the library with two hours free, step-free from the pavement. Thursday evenings until seven and Saturdays until four for people who work.
£35 privately, with the OCT scan included, and free on the NHS if you are under sixteen, under nineteen in education, sixty or over, diabetic, have glaucoma in the family or are on certain benefits. The full list is on the NHS vouchers page, and Val checks at the desk.
A scan that images the layers of your retina and optic nerve in cross-section, like an ultrasound for the eye, so we can see and measure things that are invisible through a normal lens and compare them year on year. It is in every private examination and £20 on an NHS test. From sixty, or with diabetes or glaucoma in the family, we recommend it.
Yes, any time we are open, with no appointment. Josh or Val will help, and you can bring a prescription from anywhere. If your prescription is more than two years old we will suggest an examination first.
In full, against any frame and lenses on the wall, with the value set by your prescription band. There is no voucher corner. Children's frames and lenses are covered entirely.
Ring us, not your GP. A red eye, flashes, floaters, a shadow or a sudden blur is seen here the same day, free, under the Wales Eye Care Service, and referred straight to the hospital eye unit if it needs it. Out of hours, go to A&E at the Heath.
Forty minutes with the optometrist, the OCT scan included, £35 or free on the NHS if you qualify. Tell us the days that suit and Val confirms a time within the working day. Sudden eye problem? Ring, and you are seen today.
