14 Nov 2014
Home Visits – Are You Covered?
A domiciliary visit is where an optometrist or ophthalmic medical practitioner carries out their duties away from their own premises, and offers care in a person’s home, care home or community day centre.
The aim of home visits is to ensure quality care is still provided to patients who are vulnerable or unable to access the community optometrist.
Recent statistics published by The Information Centre for Health and Social Care revealed that more patients are receiving eye care at home in England than ever before, with 428,109 home visits taking place in 20013/14, a huge increase of 46.3 per cent (135,447) over the last 10 years.
With more and more people requiring care in their own home, the quality of home visits has also progressed and optometrists who provide domiciliary services are now able to have portable use of a full range of essential equipment used for a sight test.
When conducting home visits, these expensive pieces of domiciliary equipment will not automatically be insured when working away from the shop and you may not be either.
The cost of replacing equipment used for home visits can amount to many thousands of pounds and for this to be insured you need to source ‘All Risks’ type insurance. This is normally best done by extending your shop insurance policy. We also advise you ask for the Public and Employers Liability sections to be extended to cover ‘work away’ whilst representing your insured business.
Infocus Opticians Insurance can give you the peace of mind you need when performing duties away from your practise.
To find out more, get in touch with a member of the Infocus team, or get an online quote with us today.