Optometry (Hons) The University of Manchester

Overview

We have strong links with Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, where you can take advantage of a one-week clinical placement and attend regular specialist clinics in your final year.

Students graduating with a BSc degree are usually able to register as an optometrist after a one year pre-registration placement. 

Some students are able to enrol onto our unique four-year undergraduate Master of Science in Optometry course. Graduates of this course do not need to undertake a pre-registration year and can automatically register to practice as an optometrist with the General Optical Council on successful graduation.

Career oportunities

Optometrists work in high street practice or hospital eye clinics, where they prescribe and dispense spectacles, contact lenses, and low vision aids, treat problems with binocular vision, and increasingly work alongside ophthalmologists to monitor the treatment of ocular disease.

Optometrists are now also involved in the primary care of patients with diseases such as diabetes and glaucoma. This has given rise to more emphasis on the study and management of these conditions. 

Qualified optometrists can also undertake postgraduate study to act as independent prescribers with the authority to treat a range of eye conditions.  

Most BSc Optometry (Hons) course offered at The University of Manchester students go straight on to do their pre-registration year and take the Scheme for Registration examinations, which, when successfully completed, allow entry to the General Optical Council register