“I’m proud to be part of a team that has really made a difference to myopia management in the UK”

I decided to get into optometry when I was a little girl.

My sister is three years older than me, and she was found to be myopic during her first sight test. I can remember sitting outside the room, and the optometrist filling out the prescription in front of me. I was probably about five years old. That was the first time that I thought, ‘I think I'd quite like to do this.’ I liked the numbers, and the structure. 

I studied at Aston University.

I’m from the Midlands, so when I completed my degree I moved back to Nottingham, and did my pre-reg with Dolland & Aitchison. I was very fortunate – my supervisor was an examiner for the College of Optometrists, so I had a really lovely experience as a pre-reg.

We were the final year to sit Professional Qualifying Exams (PQEs). We were a pilot group for what was to become the OSCEs. We did PQEs, but we also had in-practice assessments. They didn't go towards our end of year grades – the College was practising with their assessors.

Moving into practice from my academic studies was a really positive experience for me.

It was during my pre-reg that I really fell in love with the profession. I think there’s something about the camaraderie and that whole team experience. Having the patient at the heart of everything that you do, as a whole team, not just as an individual, really made me feel quite passionate about optics. The highlight was recognising, when I left university, that actually what was quite a technical degree led into this career that was really different, and wonderful.

I enjoyed all the patient facing aspects. I’d worked from the age of 16, in supermarkets and call centres, so I’d had a lot of experience dealing with people. It was really nice to be able to tie those skills in with the clinical aspects that I’d learned at university.

After I qualified, I took a job in Shrewsbury for Dolland & Aitchison.

My time at Dolland & Aitchison as a newly qualified optometrist was really formative. I went into a practice that had an experienced optometrist, who I was working alongside. I had lots of support. I think it’s really important, as a newly qualified optometrist, that you spend time learning how you operate as a clinician and seeing your own patients when they have problems, so you understand where you’re making mistakes and how you can get better. When I’ve had pre-regs, I’ve often said to them, ‘your pre-reg is a little bit like learning to drive, in that it’s not until you’ve passed the test that you really learn how to do it.’

I was at Dolland & Aitchison for a couple of years, before leaving to go and work in an independent practice.

For five years, I worked in an independent part-time, and I locumed part-time. In the independent practice, I was on my own. That’s a really different feeling, as a clinician, because you are the sole decision maker. At the same time, I was accountable for the performance of a family-run business. It was a really important part of my career, and it still supports me now, because I work across different business types, and I have that insight into what’s important to an independent practice.

Working across the multiples as a locum was super valuable too. Again, it helps me now, having experienced all their different cultures and practice management systems and the different ways that they operate. I got a really wide experience. I credit those five years of my career with experiencing life in both environments.

When I came out of that five-year stint as a locum and working in an independent, I had twins.

When I went back to work, after having the twins, I didn’t want to locum anymore – I wanted that stability of having a regular place to work.

Because Dolland & Aitchison had merged with them, I joined Boots Opticians. I was really fortunate to go work in the flagship store, and after about 12 months there, I moved into management. I wanted to manage because I wanted to prioritise patients, not just clinically, but also from a patient journey perspective.

Going into management, looking after my people was of key importance.

It became apparent early on in my management career that the patient journey was the thing I was most interested in. That was everything from making the right clinical decision, so the patient didn’t have to come back – maybe doing a dilation on that day rather than bringing them back, or doing a repeat fields there and then – to making sure the team had the right skillset to be able to get things right for their patients first time. It was about making every patient who walked through the door feel like they were part of the family, and that they were treated as an individual and looked after.

There was that piece around moving the patient through the journey, but equally when the patient was in the testing room, making sure the optometrist really took the time to listen and understand their needs. Every recommendation you make should have a ‘because’ in it somewhere – ‘I’m recommending this, because you told me this.’ As a result, I ran some really successful practices with some very happy patients. I was at Boots for nearly 10 years.

It was about making every patient who walked through the door feel like they were part of the family

When the first lockdown happened, I was part of what we termed Project Gold at Boots, which was COVID-19 testing.

We were the first car park COVID-19 testing site in the UK, at Boots head office. I was very happy in my role at Boots, but a previous colleague then approached me about joining the CooperVision team.

I moved to CooperVision at the height of COVID-19, in July 2020, in the role of professional affairs consultant.

It felt really unusual to me. I went from COVID-19 testing in a car park to being a professional affairs consultant, sitting at my desk with a laptop, having never had a desk job in my life. That was my first experience of CooperVision.

I spent a year as a professional affairs consultant, before I moved into head of professional affairs. We’ve done lots of things since then: we’ve seen out the COVID-19 pandemic, and moved back to the new world of business as usual.

Less than 12 months ago, I took on responsibility for the professional and commercial interests of CooperVision Specialty Eye Care in the UK.

I look after the core professional team and the specialty professional team. We’ve moved some of my focus away from those soft lens products that everybody associates us with, to some of the less commonly prescribed products – products for irregular corneas, for example. They will be used for conditions such as keratoconus. Some of these lenses literally give people their functional sight back. Also ortho-k, which is an additional product to add to our myopia management portfolio.

Over the next couple of years, I’d really like to encourage more eye care professionals into fitting specialty contact lenses for a broad range of eye conditions. That’s my next hill to climb.

Some of these lenses literally give people their functional sight back

I am a firm advocate that what I and my team bring to CooperVision is so much broader than our clinical expertise.

It’s also about those practice operational experiences that we have – the understanding of how a patient is recommended contact lenses, through to what happens in a contact lens fitting appointment, and how the whole practice team supports the patient through that journey. I’m really passionate that myself and my team bring a wealth of understanding to an industry which is a medical devices manufacturer.

The biggest thing on our radar remains children and eye health, and myopia management.

I’m proud to be part of a team that has really made a difference to myopia management in the UK, both by having fantastic products in market and by influencing fitting behaviours for ECPs.

We have seen, during my four years at CooperVision, a real change in both the understanding and the acceptance of the impact that myopia will have, if the projections are correct, over the coming couple of decades.

There is an increased engagement with myopia control as a category. So, thinking about not just contact lenses, but all the interventions that ECPs can prescribe to their patients now. There was a bit of scepticism four years ago, and in quite a short period of time we’ve got to a place where this is something that is endorsed by professional bodies for suitable patients when it’s in their best interests. Having seen that change is the thing I’m most proud of.