§ Lord Cullen of Ashbourneasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether it is true that the proposals of Clause I of the Health and Social Security Bill will make the United Kingdom the only country within the EEC which permits unqualified persons to dispense spectacles with prescriptions whether by opticians or ophthalmologists and, if so, whether they consider that this represents an unacceptable lowering of standards of opthalmic dispensing in the United Kingdom as compared with our EEC partners.
466WA
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Glenarthur)Information is available only for eight of the other nine member states. This shows that in Denmark anyone may set up in business as an optician and dispense spectacles; and in the Federal Republic of Germany spectacles must be dispensed from a business involving a master optician but not necessarily by a qualified optician.
We do not consider that the Government's proposals on the dispensing of spectacles contained in the Health and Social Security Bill represent a lowering of standards. The intention is to give the public the benefit of wider choice and lower prices that fair competition can bring while providing adequate safeguards against health risks.