Give Me My Pupillary Distance

We, the undersigned, call on the General Optical Council (GOC) to take one simple step to give us, the consumers, a fairer deal and greater choice when buying our prescription glasses.

Under current GOC regulations, a prescription for glasses is not required to provide one crucial piece of information: the Pupillary Distance or PD, which is the distance between the centres of the patient’s pupils as illustrated above.

This measurement is essential to ensure that the optical centres of the lenses in your new glasses are perfectly aligned with your pupils, so as to provide maximum comfort and effectiveness.

Although consumers can, if necessary, measure their own PD, there is no legitimate reason for eye-care professionals to omit this measurement from the eye test prescription.

This is an unethical and anti-competitive practice and places an unnecessary obstacle in the way of patients who wish to exercise their freedom of choice and shop around for their glasses, especially if they want to take advantage of competitive prices from online suppliers.

In the interests of consumer choice, ethical professional practice and patient welfare, we call on the GOC to add the PD measurement to optical prescription forms without delay.

Read more about this campaign and view the evidence at: www.pupillary-distance.net

View Signatures without signing