Orthoptist
Treat people who have problems with their eyes due to a condition, illness or injury.
About the job
Salary
Source: National Careers Service
Weekly
£538
Entry level
£962
Experienced
Monthly
£2,333
Entry level
£4,167
Experienced
Yearly
£28,000
Entry level
£50,000
Experienced
2,700
people are currently employed
Low growth
100 more jobs in 5 years
These figures refer to this job and similar ones with comparable skills and qualifications. They only apply to Scotland. Source: Oxford Economics
What it's like
You would treat people who have problems with their eyes due to a condition, illness or injury. You’d do tests to find the problem and decide on the best way to treat it.
You’d help people of all ages with conditions that affect their eye muscles, connected nerves, eye movement and vision. Using specialist equipment you would examine their vision and how their eyes work.
A lot of the patients you see would have:
A squint (strabismus)
Reduced or double vision
A ‘lazy eye’ (amblyopia)
A disorder due to injury or disease
Other patients could have vision problems as a result of:
Glaucoma
Cataracts
A stroke
Retinal disease
Neurological disorders
Patients would be referred to you from the eye casualty and neurology departments of hospitals, GPs and health visitors.
You would also do vision tests with children in schools and community centres.
You’d recommend treatments such as:
Using an eye patch
Doing regular eye exercises
Contact lenses for children including teaching parents how to insert and remove them
Low vision aids
Surgery
Sometime you’d refer patients to a different specialist, for example, when you find that a problem is caused by another condition like a brain tumour.
Having problems with their eyes will be very worrying for people and sometimes they might be distressed. You’d need to explain the issues to them patiently. They might also feel that a treatment does not help and so you’d need to encourage them to keep going with it.
It would be important to keep accurate patient records including details of the diagnosis, treatment and progress.
You are likely to work in a team alongside other healthcare professionals, including ophthalmologists (eye surgeons), optometrists - who prescribe and dispense glasses and lenses - and vision scientists.
You can see more about this role in the National Health Service on the orthoptist page on the NHS Scotland Careers website.
Hours
Environment
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Top skills
Skills are things you're good at. Whether you know what yours are or not, everyone has them!
It's useful to learn which ones are important in a job so you know the areas you need to brush up on. It can also help you work out if you're suited to a career.
Here are some of the skills you'll need to do this job:
- taking responsibility
- making decisions
- developing a plan
- social conscience
- empathising
- written communication
- verbal communication
- listening
- resilience
Your skills are important
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Getting in
Explore the sections shown for more information about getting into this career.
You might have qualifications which are not shown here but will allow you access to a course. You can compare your qualifications by looking at their SCQF Level. For more information about this, check out the SCQF website.
Always contact the college, university or training provider to check exactly what you'll need.
Colleges and universities will list subjects you'll need for entry to a course. Some useful subjects include:
Biology
Care
Chemistry
Physics
You need an honours degree in orthoptics (SCQF level 10), a Certificate of Clinical Competency and to register with the General Optical Council (GOC).
Entry requirements are five Highers (SCQF level 6) at BBBBC including English, Maths and two science subjects plus English and Physics at Standard grade Credit level 1 or National 5 (SCQF level 5)at B. Higher Biology or Human Biology preferred.
Work experience in a related field is useful.
To be approved for membership of the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) Scheme run by Disclosure Scotland.
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