A HEREFORD optometry practice has picked up a top industry award for its enhanced services.

BBR Optometry was named winner of the Enhanced Service Award at the Optician Awards 2015 which took place at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole.

BBR’s entry highlighted the practice’s commitment to offering an enhanced service through both its partnership work with Herefordshire Local Optical Committee (LOC) and the service it offers to private patients.

The St Owen Street-based practice first began offering enhanced services more than 25 years ago with the introduction of a private children’s visual assessment and an NHS low vision scheme.

Since then, BBR has enhanced its own services with the addition of a wide range of technologies and specialisms.

BBR chairman, optometrist, Nick Rumney, said: "We believe there are two sorts of enhanced services – those that could or should be part of the core work of an optometrist in primary care and secondly those that are perhaps the province of the specialist practice. Happily BBR is able to accommodate both.

"We are delighted that our ongoing commitment to shaping our services to meet the needs of the local community has been recognised with this prestigious industry award – the opticians’ equivalent of the Oscars."

In recent years, BBR has developed a number of specialisms including colorimetry and visual stress, glaucoma detection, overnight vision correction and dry eye management.

It was the first practice in the three counties to invest in the now widely used OCT (optical coherence tomography) which provides optometrists with a 3D view of the retina, and recently introduced equipment that provides ultra-widefield images.

As well as being a keen advocate of new technologies, Mr Rumney is also an accredited independent prescribing optometrist, meaning the majority of conditions can be treated and managed in the practice without the need for outside referral.

BBR is no stranger to winning industry awards, having previously won the coveted ‘Independent Practice of the Year’ and ‘Business Initiative of the Year’ titles at the Optician Awards.

This latest trophy comes just three months after BBR Optometry was named ‘Rodenstock Centre of Excellence 2014’.

Mr Rumney added: "We are extremely lucky to have a loyal dedicated team that strives to offer the best service possible to all of our patients – I am very proud of our latest achievement and glad that awards such as these enable us to show industry peers what can be achieved with some progressive thinking."

Organised by Optician Magazine, the Optician Awards coincided with industry trade fair Optrafair 2015 which took place at the NEC between April 18 and April 20.