Benenden Health offers online eye screening

1st March 2024, by Megan Anderson.

Online eye screening from Ocushield provides members with eye tests in their own home.

Not-for-profit, affordable healthcare provider Benenden Health has partnered with eye care brand Ocushield, to offer its 870,000+ members access to at-home digital eye screening.

The digital test, which is Ocushield’s most-recent eye care innovation, aims to improve access to eye care and support early detection of eye health issues including vision abnormalities, astigmatism, visual field, contrast sensitivity, colour vision and depth perception issues.

The test takes up to seven minutes to complete, and can be accessed and completed from a smartphone, laptop or PC, from the comfort of the user’s own home. Its main target audience are those who work in front of screens for a large portion of the day, and those who may live rurally and may struggle to access an optometrist.

Upon completing the test, Ocushield provides the user with a results report with additional suggestions how to maintain your day-to-day eye health.

Benenden Health’s Head of Innovation, David Winter comments on the partnership, “Welcoming Ocushield to Benenden Health’s product means we continue enhancing our preventative health provision, supporting our members to improve and maintain good health from day one.

“Benenden Health is also keen to further broaden its digital health solutions across significant conditions, with our own research* showing that eye conditions are the 10th most common self-diagnosed health concern. A further 54% of those surveyed admitted they use “their own medical knowledge” to self-diagnose eye issues.”

“In providing our members with an instantly accessible solution to evaluate eye concerns, we may help mitigate risky self-diagnosis, while supporting access to health solutions at a member’s convenience.”

Ocushield’s Founder and Optometrist, Dhruvin Patel adds, “We’ve come a long way since I started researching blue light while at university in 2013. Ten years on, we’ve helped to protect more than 300,000 eyes across the world and with screen time increasing, especially among young people at earlier ages than ever before, we have a lot more work to do to help prevent a poor eyesight epidemic.”

Ocushield also offers a range of products developed by optometrists to help reduce the effects of blue light emitted from digital devices, such as glasses, lamps and masks. After walking away from a Dragon’s Den interview and offer of investment, the company secured £1m of private investment.

More information on Benenden Health’s services, and Ocushield's services.