President, Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein, visits the City Sight optometry clinic at Northampton Square Campus for a tour with staff and students and to receive a comprehensive eye examination.
By Mr Shamim Quadir (Senior Communications Officer), Published
City Sight is City, University of London’s teaching optometry clinic located at the heart of our Northampton Square campus.
The clinic provides a wide range of eye health and vision services to our students, staff, the general public, businesses and professionals with specialist visual requirements.
City Sight‘s student training clinics are delivered completely free of charge to the public. These are where our third-year optometry students deliver comprehensive eye examinations and contact lens fittings to patients under the direct supervision of experienced teaching optometrists.
City Sight’s dispensing clinic also provides a wide range of spectacles and contact lenses to its patients at competitive prices. Further clinics at City Sight include general clinics providing free NHS examinations for those eligible, paediatric clinics, and clinics for members of the London Fire Service.
Watch City’s President, Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein, talk about the importance of City Sight to the health of the City community and education of our optometry students:
President visits
Last term, Professor Finkelstein visited City Sight for a tour of the facilities and to engage in discussion with staff and students. He later returned during the student clinics for his eye examination, and to speak with a recent graduate of City’s BSc Optometry course, Akshay Shah.


Tour of City Sight
The President’s tour of City Sight included demonstrations of: its wide array of consulting rooms, with explanations of how each type of clinic is delivered; the state-of-the-art equipment that is used to assess patients for various aspects of vision, eye and general health; how the spectacle dispensing function of City Sight works.



A comprehensive eye examination
At his eye examination, Professor Finkelstein experienced first-hand some of the state-of-the-art equipment the clinic employs. This included the Humphrey Field Analyzer 3 used to assess the patient's visual fields to detect and monitor vision loss caused by diseases such as glaucoma. If detected early, these can be treated and sight saved.

Recently installed at City Sight, Professor Finkelstein’s eye health was also examined with the Optos Optomap retinal imaging device.
Optomap is the only technology of its kind to image approximately 80% of the retina (inside lining of the eye) at a time, and is optimally placed to detect the early signs of eye conditions such as retinal tears, detachments, macular degeneration and glaucoma, in addition to non-eye diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.
This technology enables City Sight optometrists to detect, monitor, or make patient referrals to other services for eye and general health conditions.



After his eye examination, Professor Finkelstein spoke with pre-registration optometrist, Akshay Shah, to get an idea of Akshay’s optometry student journey at City.
Akshay is currently a pre-registration optometrist at Moorfields Eye Hospital, and completed his BSc in Optometry at City earlier in the year, including his clinical training at City Sight.
He shared with the President how he got into optometry, how City Sight has supported his development, and some of the challenges he experienced, such as training during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Watch a recording of their conversation below:
Please also read Akshay’s recent interview with Optometry Today about how he obtained his pre-registration placement at Moorfield’s Eye Hospital with support from City.
Operating during the pandemic
As optometry services were considered essential by UK Government, City Sight was open during the COVID-19 pandemic, including periods of lockdown. This meant that City Sight staff and students undertook a variety of measures to operate safely, including the utilisation of PPE (personal protective equipment), and enhanced hygiene protocols.



Book an appointment with City Sight today
Speaking at City Sight, President of City, University of London, Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein, said:
Find out more
To book an appointment at City Sight, please call 020 7040 8338 or email: [email protected]
Visit the City Sight webpage.