Posted By Rachael Palmer All staff are members of a health scheme, the employer pays the basic level which enables employees to claim back £45 p.a. for eye test & contribution towards glasses. An employee who is a "user" as defined by the DSE regs has an eye test and is prescribed varifocals. Employee pays for glasses & claims the allowance for that year of £45 to off set some of the cost of the glasses. After a while employee decides varifocals aren't suitable for used with DSE - she just can't adjust to using them when typing etc. she doesn't speak to employer to see if adjustments can be made to the workstation to see if that would help but returns to optician who states that she can have a pair of glasses made up for DSE use without further eye test being carried out. Who pays for the new glasses? She's been told (not by me) that the cost of the glasses should come out of her annual health scheme allowance and that no further payment will be forthcoming. I've been asked for my opinion and think there could well be union involvement before long if the issue isn't resolved one way or the other I know what I think but would appreciate it if contributors to the forum could give their views.

Posted By LMR if the varifocals are the first pair of varifocals that this person has tried instructions should have been given by the optician on how to take them back and get allowances back from them to change the spectacles to either single vision or bi-focals. It is a known problem changing to varifocals and all opticians have a process to deal with this. Discover if there are any additional costs involved and go from there. As a result of this we now have a 'if they are your first pair of varifocals we do not pay for them we will provide spectacles for use at work'. Hope this helps.

Posted By Tabs I believe you need to pay for the replacement glasses. It is then your choice whether you introduce a policy regarding varifocals, having had your fingers burnt. You may want to restrict DSE glasses to plain single-use glasses. But in the scheme of things, it is unlikely to break you if it is restricted to genuine cases. Chances are that the productivity lost has already exceeded the cost of the next pair ;-)

Posted By Pete Longworth The varifocals aren't suitable for DSE use but presumably will be suitable for other aspects of the employee's life. Equally the employee presumably won't be throwing them away so in effect has a subsidised pair of spectacles for personal use or maybe I'm being too presumptive here. Maybe the employee can re-imburse you for the varifocals if they are going to continue to be used for everyday matters and then you can subsidise a pair of single vision DSE specs.

Posted By Pete48 After years of trying to "support" individual choice, I have concluded that the best way to think of corrective spectacles for DSE use is to treat them just like any other piece of PPE. Paid for by the company, owned by the company and used by the employee for work. Has to be fit for purpose and if it can be fashionable etc then OK but if not... Of course we need to stay aware and manage specific medical or special needs but as a general rule it works well. Buy in cost is a decision for each company and some may "allow" more and others the bare minimum.Replaced at no cost to the employee as required, subject to all the usual controls of PPE. Just like boots, gloves, hi-vis vests etc. I have worked in companies where employees are not allowed to take their DSE glasses home at night! A bit Draconian for me but acceptable to some. Any system that compromises that approach is likely to lead to complication sooner or later as we see, yet again, in this case.