Valarie Jerome Optometrists at 49 Northbrook Street celebrates five years as Newbury business

An independent optometrist on Newbury high street has celebrated its fifth year of helping customers with their eye care needs.

Valarie Jerome Optometrists, at 49 Northbrook Street, celebrated five years as a business with a special open day event on Friday (December 13).

Dr Jerome, who is originally from Georgia in the USA, has called Newbury her home for the last 14 years after meeting her now-husband, a Newbury native, on holiday in California.

She decided to set up her own business after working in different opticians and optometrists in the local area and not being satisfied with how both she and the customers were being treated.

“I wanted to offer the patients more,” she said.

“I wanted to give them more time. I wanted to give them different products, and these were things that weren’t being offered where I worked.”

She opened her shop in late 2019, just a matter of months before the pandemic wreaked havoc on local businesses throughout the country.

Dr Jerome kept her new business afloat during this worrying time by doing online consultations and opening an online shop.

She said: “Being a small, bespoke, personalised service really benefitted us because a lot of people during Covid and even after Covid didn’t want that rushed or crowded experience.

“They wanted more one-on-one time to talk about their eye problems or their vision concerns.”

Now five years on, Valarie Jerome Optometrists has established itself as one of Newbury’s premier eye care specialists.

“We strive to give everyone that five-star service,” Dr Jerome said.

“Our goal is to make every single person that comes in here feel important because they are important. If we get it right the first time, we save you having problems with your glasses or your eye health.

“With each patient that comes in, every eye exam you are getting the full service.

“You don’t have to pay for an upgrade for this or that. You are getting the best of the best for every single routine appointment that we do here.

“You are getting a full analysis of your vision, your eye health, your binocular vision health — the way your eyes work together, or not work together — and the back of your eyes.”

Dr Jerome also gives all her patients a dry eye assessment as standard as it is a speciality of hers.

Looking to the future, Dr Jerome is hoping to bring back the online shop, as well as engage with her customers more online with blog posts about eye health.

She is also thinking of possibly starting her own podcast to discuss eye problems and vision concerns.