New team offers vital eye services to Heathfield area

Heathfield practice Pople & Broad has fast become the ‘eye GP’ for the area dealing with numerous emergencies as well as trying to meet the huge demand for NHS eye services.

Since the new team took over in March 2022 there has been over £100,000 invested in state-of-the-art machinery and improvements such as air conditioning.

When previous owners Joanne Broad and James Smith decided to step back from running the business, Anthony and Amanda Bahadur and Shahram and Ellie Kashani made an offer to buy the practice. Anthony and Amanda are both very experienced specialist optometrists who also own a national, award-winning practice in Hailsham and Shahram Kashani is a leading consultant ophthalmologist at East Sussex NHS Trust.

Anthony said: “Pople & Broad has always been an independent family business since it was opened 80 years ago. We had a meeting and agreed a way to keep it as a family business with the same ethos. We all liked that the business is staying true to its roots and hasn’t become corporate like so many other opticians.”

Pople and Broad is now unique in several ways. Firstly, it is rare to have two husband and wife teams involved in the same practice and secondly it offers an unrivalled level of specialist services.

“Only one percent of practices in the UK offer the specialist services we can now provide in Heathfield. For instance, we can treat problems like corneal ulcers and uveitis that would normally require hospital treatment. Having independent prescribing optometrists ophthalmologists on our team means we can prescribe medicine – unlike most high street opticians.

“We are really pleased that we are taking the pressure off the NHS and offering hospital examinations on the high street. It’s also better for patients as they can be treated in Heathfield without having to travel to hospital and deal with problems like parking.”

It has been a busy time for the team lately especially during the height of the pandemic as eye departments were turned into COVID wards.

Anthony explains: “We were flat out and helped many people to save their sight treating everything from ulcers, retinal detachments, wet AMD and bleeds at the back of the eye. Shah is a retinal specialist and surgeon and with our specialist machinery we are able to detect retinal tears and bleeds that can lead to loss of sight. He can assess a patient and arrange private surgery if needed all from the Heathfield practice.

“When you receive a phonecall to say thank you – you’ve saved my sight it’s incredibly rewarding. Amanda treated a girl who had a firework in her eye and spotted that she had a detached retina.”

For the new, ten-strong team continuing to offer NHS services is very important even though it’s not financially rewarding. The practice gets paid just £22 to do an eye test and it costs three times that amount to deliver the service each time – so the team needs patients to support them by purchasing glasses to counteract the loss. Around 90 percent of the patients are NHS and can have a basic check free of charge. They can also choose to pay £25 for additional tests using the Optomap machine. For children it’s an additional £15.  The huge demand for eyecare means that appointments are booked up months in advance especially for children but the team will always try to accommodate emergencies. For over 60s eye tests are free

“We feel we have a moral duty to look after people and offer NHS services. Demographics dictate that there are more older patients and we feel it’s important to help these patients,” added Anthony.

Emotional support is also offered at the practice with Ellie having had a long history of involvement with the Macular Society in the area. There are also specialist dry eye clinics and specialisms in visual disabilities such as dyslexia and a minor eye clinic, funded by the NHS. Rather than going to A&E patients can attend the practice. This suits people like builders who get rust in their eyes and means they can get specialist help quickly.

When it comes to buying glasses, offering a wide range of choice is important and the team is making sure they have the latest fashions on offer as well as a good range of sunglasses – there is something for everyone.

Going forward the team plans to build on the foundation laid down by Jo and James, grow the business and continue to look after the local community. They also want to integrate their ophthalmology and optometry services and be able to support hospital eye services even more.

Pople & Broad Opticians has been a firm part of the Heathfield community for over 80 years.  James Pople and his son Robert Pople laid the original foundations of the practice before passing the baton on to Joanne Broad over 15 years ago. This is where the practice derives its name from.