NHS FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, you are also entitled to access your clinical records or any other personal information held about you and you can contact the head office of Crown Eyeglass plc to do this.

Feedback

If you have any comments about the operation of the Publication Scheme, or how we have dealt with our request for information from the Scheme, please write to:

The Directors,
Crown Eyeglass plc
Glenfield Park
Blakewater Road
Blackburn
BB1 5QH

CLASSES OF INFORMATION

All NHS information at Crown Optical Centres and Direkt Optik branches is held, retained and destroyed in accordance with NHS guidelines. Our commitment to publish information excludes any information which can be legitimately withheld under the exemptions set out in the NHS Openness Code or Freedom of Information Act 2000 (revised January 2009). Where individual Classes are subject to exemptions, the main reasons are e.g. the protection of commercial interests and personal information under the Data Protection Act 1998. This applies to all Classes within the Publication Scheme. The information on this Scheme is grouped into the following broad categories:

Class 1 - Who we are and what we do

CROWN EYEGLASS PLC REGISTERED IN ENGLAND NO. 1759022

Head Office:	Crown Eyeglass plc Glenfield Park Blakewater Road Blackburn BB1 5QH
Telephone number:	01254 844000
Fax number:	01254 680241
E-mail address:	This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

CROWN EYEGLASS PLC IS THE HEAD OFFICE FOR CROWN OPTICAL CENTRES AND DIREKT OPTIK BRANCHES THROUGHOUT THE U.K.

Chairman:	Mr. J. G. Lee
Financial Director:	Mr. M. B. Lee
Operations Director:	Miss K. Thompson
Sales and Marketing Director:	Miss D. Singer

Class 2 ? What we spend and how we spend it

Our previous year?s accounts are available to view at Companies House. The cost of this information is at the prevailing rate.

Class 3 ? What are priorities are and how we are doing

We are committed to the development of clinical governance procedures and protocols.

All our practices are subject to regular inspections and reviews by their local PCT.

All branches are able to provide general ophthalmic services including NHS sight tests and the professional staff are registered with their relevant professional bodies and NHS authorities.

NHS sight tests will be given to all those fully entitled to one, and no further charge for this service will be made.

All branches provide a full range of NHS optical vouchers and are happy to honour NHS vouchers for all opticians. Furthermore, glasses are available to children under 16 for the NHS voucher value as are glasses to those adults entitled to an optical voucher under the NHS scheme.

Class 4 ? How we make decisions

Decisions are made by the Board of Directors and recorded in memo form. Company Policies are recorded in the Company Handbook.

Class 5 ? Our policies and procedures

The Company Handbook sets out our protocols, policies and procedures.

All practices are registered under the Data Protection Act and all employees sign a confidentiality clause under the terms of their contract of employment.

The Company has a duty of care to manage and promote the health and safety of all its customers and employees

Practice Manual
Reporting faults

Complaints

Practice Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint or concern about the service you hae received from the Optician or Doctor or any of the staff working in any of our practices, please let us know. We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of a NHS system for dealing with complaints. Our complaints system meets national criteria. How to Complain

We hope that most problems can be sorted our easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out in this way and you wish to make a complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible - ideally, within a matter of days or at most a few weeks - because this will enable us to establish what happened more easily. If it is not possible to do that, please let us have details of your complaint -

within 12 months of the incident that caused the problem or
within 12 months of discovering that you have a problem.

Complaints should be addressed to the Branch Manager. Alternatively, you may ask for an appointment with them in order to discuss your concerns., He/she will explain the complaints procedure to you and will make sure that your concerns are dealt with promptly. It will be a great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint.

What shall we do

We shall acknowledge your complaint within two working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within ten working days of the date when you raised it with us. We shall then be in a position to offer you an explanation, or a meeting with the people involved. When we look into your complaint, we shall aim to:

find out what happened and what went wrong
make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this
make sure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate
identify what we can do to make sure the problem doesn't happen again

Complaining on behalf of someone else

Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have their permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable (because of illness) of providing this.

All practices are registered under the Data Protection Act and all employees sign a confidentiality clause under the terms of their contract of employment.

The Company has a duty of care to manage and promote the health and safety of all its customers and employees.

Charges for information:

For the most part, we will charge you only for hard copies (or copying onto media (e.g. CD ROM)). Some information is available free, but for others there may be a charge. The charges will vary according to how information is made available. Charges are as follows:

Via the Opticians/Primary Care Trust Web Site - Free of charge, although any charges for Internet Service provider and personal printing costs would have to be met by the individual.
For those without Internet access, a single print-out as on the website would be available by post from Crown Eyeglass plc or by personal application at any Crown Optical Centre or Direkt Optik branch at a cost of ?5, including postage and packing.

However, requests for multiple printouts, or for archived copies of documents which are no longer accessible or available on the web, may attract a charge for the retrieval, photocopy, postage etc. We will let you know the cost and charges that will have to be paid in advance. We wil not provide printouts of other organisation's websites.
Leaflets and brochures -free of charge for leaflets or booklets on, for example, services we offer to the public. A list is available from Crown Eyeglass plc.
E-mail will be free of charge unless it says otherwise.

The charges will be reviewed regularly.

This Publication Scheme

In this class we will publish any changes we make to this Publication Scheme, the criteria on which our information management policies are made and a referral point for all enquiries regarding information management generally in the Company. We will also publish any proposed changes or additions to publications already available.

Class 6 ? Lists and Registers

None held.

General Optical Council
General Medical Council

Class 7 ? The services we offer

We have a unique ?3 for 1? offer where you can choose 3 pairs of complete glasses and pay for only 1. There are no restrictions on your first 2 pairs.

This offer does not apply where glasses are supplied from our special NHS range.

All glasses are manufactured in our state of the art laboratory in Blackburn, and conform to all current British and European Standards.

Useful resources

Web sites:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/ - This is the Information Commissioner's web site

http://www.dca.gov.uk/ - This is the Lord Chancellor's Department web site

Publications

Copyright

Material available through this Publication Scheme is subject to Crown Eyeglass plc's copyright unless otherwise indicated. Unless expressly indicated to the contrary, it may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium provided it is done so accurately in a manner which will not mislead. Where items are re-published or copied to others, you must identify the source and acknowledge copyright status. This permit does not extend to third party material accessed through the scheme. See HMSO Guidance Notes