A INVESTMENT of £180,000 has equipped an East Lancashire Specsavers branch with a dual purpose 'hearcare' and optical room.

The room means the opticians' Nelson branch will now be able to look deeper into patients eyes than ever before with a hospital grade optical coherence tomography machine.

This will help to detect and treat preventable sight loss.

Store director Mark Addison said: "This investment gives us the ability to greatly enhance the services on offer to the local community.

"We’ve gone from three rooms to four, which now allows us to incorporate hearcare into our service offering so that more of the community are able to access the healthcare they require and deserve."

Given that nearly half of all sight loss is preventable, the opticians says that an OCT scan means conditions can be managed before they get worse and can help prevent potential sight loss. 

It can also be used to detect glaucoma up to four years in advance. 

To find out more, go to: specsavers.co.uk/nelson.