As per the government’s instructions, we have opened our practice for face to face emergency and essential eyecare. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the way we now operate will be different to before, in order to comply with social distancing guidelines and protect our patients and staff from the risk of infection with COVID-19. We have put in place new rules and guidelines to ensure we can all stay safe, as detailed below.
Opening hours, services and patient access
- Our opening hours are now as follows: Monday to Saturday from 9.15am – 5.30pm. We will be working from home with appointments made over phone.
- We welcome both existing and new patients to use our services.
- We are currently providing limited services, including emergency eyecare, glasses repair or replacement, and contact lens ordering.
- To effectively comply with social distancing guidelines and protect both patients and staff from the risk of infection with COVID-19, we will only permit 2 people to enter the practice at any one time.
Plan your visit
- We are seeing patients on an appointment only basis. Please call us first or contact us online to book a time slot. Walk-ins will be limited to ensure that only 2 people are in the practice at any one time.
- Before your appointment, one of our opticians will contact you for a pre-assessment. During this call, they will ask you a series of questions to check if you are currently experiencing any symptoms of COVID-19. If you are exhibiting symptoms, we will be unable to see you in person and will you to reschedule your appointment after your symptoms have gone. If you are not exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19, our optician will explain exactly what to expect when you come in to see us.
- If you are coming to the practice with the intention of purchasing new glasses, we highly encourage you to speak to us about your requirements first, so we can help you find your perfect pair.
Your appointment at Murray Opticians Glasgow
- It is essential for us to carry out stringent sanitisation procedures and social distancing measures while you are inside the practice, so please allow up to 1 hour for your appointment. This is subject to change, depending on the nature of your visit.
- As we will be operating on a system that limits the number of patients in-practice to 2 people and appointments will also be longer than normal to enable proper sanitisation, we ask that you please arrive on time for your appointment. If you are driving, please allow ample time for parking. Any delay will have a knock-on effect on the remaining patient appointments scheduled for that day.
- We ask that during your visit you do not bring along children or other family members or friends if they are not being seen by us. This will help maintain social distancing, as per government guidelines.
- Please remember to bring your own pen to sign any forms.
- If you are wearing any PPE on entering the practice, such as a disposable face mask or gloves, you will need to remove and discard them in the bin provided. This will help reduce the risk of infection with COVID-19. You will be provided with new PPE if needed.
- After you have removed existing PPE, you will be instructed to use hand sanitiser, which again, will be provided in practice. You will also be advised to use hand sanitiser during your appointment if deemed necessary, and once again after your check-up is complete. Our opticians will follow the same procedure, sanitising their hands before and after every patient appointment, and they will additionally disinfect any equipment that has been used and any surfaces that have been touched by patients.
- We will endeavour to see you as soon as you arrive, however, should you need to wait, please do so in the designated waiting area where we have spaced out the chairs in accordance with social distancing.
- If you wear glasses, they will be sanitised using a appropriate cleaning agents before our staff check your prescription and hand them back to you.
- Protective shields will be in place around the practice to aid social distancing and reduce the risk of transmitting infection between staff and patients.
- Common surfaces, such as door handles and chairs will be regularly sanitised by staff throughout the day.
Eye examinations
- All staff in the practice will be wearing face masks, including the optician who will carry out your eye examination. The optician will also be wearing full PPE, including a face shield, mask, apron and gloves and will keep these on at all times during your appointment.
- You will notice that additional protective cough shields will be in place in the examination room. This will not interfere with your eye examination.
- We will continue to carry out telephone and video triage calls for anyone who is unable to come in practice for an appointment.
Trying and purchasing glasses in-practice
- Our staff will be disinfecting all frames in practice at the beginning and end of each day.
- Any frames you select to try on will also be disinfected first. After you have tried them on, the frames will be disinfected again.
- Once you have selected and purchased your frames, we will contact you via text message or phone call to let you know when your glasses are ready. You can then book in a time to collect them in practice. Alternatively, you can choose to have your glasses delivered to your doorstep.
- Please be aware that the turnaround time for making up new prescription glasses may be longer than usual.
If you have questions about any of the above guidelines, please do contact Murray Opticians Glasgow online or by giving us a call.
Thank you for your understanding,
The Murray Opticians team.