This is the way.

I spent 10 years working in Optics in the UK. The NHS will cover the cost of eye tests (and in some cases, spectacles too) if you meet certain criteria (mostly age-related, but welfare recipients get it too).

Until just before the pandemic, NHS claims were done on something called a GOS1 form. You just gave your details and the reason for the NHS entitlement, signed at the bottom, and away you go. Processing these forms through Primary Care Trust (PCT) was a doddle, too. Honestly the hardest bit was ensuring the forms were filled correctly.

Now? Now it's all digital! (:

You have to get an iPad. Log into the website that's probably down (outage is hilariously common), and slow at best. Confirm details with the patient. Click through a number of pages in doing so, waiting for the loading times. Send the form digitally to the Optometrist and hope the form actually appears on their end (it's not a given that it will, and if it doesn't then you have to do everything all over again!), have them sign at the end of the test, then shove the iPad in the patient's face again to have them sign to confirm they've had the eye test. Then the form is digitally sent to PCT for processing, where it will probably get rejected for some BS reason and the clinic doesn't get paid anyway.

They tell us this is better. This is the future.
And they wonder why people are quitting optics in large numbers.

A colloquial term for "old-fashioned" or "outdated".

For me, plasma TVs. I am convinced the reason nobody makes them anymore isn't because of the weight, or because of energy consumption.

It's because if a plasma TV ever broke, it's because you broke it. Products built to last forever just aren't good business sense.

Got a 48" Panasonic Plasma TV back in 2008. Paid £500 for it brand new, state of the art back in the day as 720p "HD-ready". It's still my main TV now. Never once had a problem with it.

Same story with others I've talked to. Lots of people who switched from Plasma to LED, only to find they've had to replace their LED TVs after 3-5 years. Some not even as long as that.

I have a 4K gaming monitor for my computer, and I'm sure on paper it's a million times better than the old Plasma. But for the life of me, I'm just not seeing it.