Complete this online form with details of your enquiry and one of our advisors will call you back.
Gable Asset Finance specialises in tailored finance solutions for optometrists, opticians and optical professionals across the United Kingdom. Whether you’re acquiring a practice, refurbishing premises, funding new diagnostic equipment (OCT, retinal cameras, slit-lamps), covering tax liabilities or smoothing cashflow, we design flexible packages — hire purchase, finance leases, operating leases, loans, sale & leaseback and blended project finance — that match the commercial and clinical realities of eye care services.
Modern optometry practices need to balance clinical excellence with commercial sustainability. High-spec equipment (OCT, retinal cameras, advanced slit-lamps and tonometers) improves diagnostic capability, enables expanded services and supports referral pathways — but the capital cost can be prohibitive.
Financing equipment and practice investments allows businesses to:
Overview: Hire Purchase is a common route for optometry practices that want to own equipment at the end of the agreement. The lender purchases the equipment, you make fixed repayments over an agreed term and ownership transfers after the final payment (or token payment).
Why choose HP for optical equipment?
Typical structure: Terms often range from 24–84 months depending on asset type. Deposits can be zero in some cases, though 5–20% is common for high-value diagnostics.
Overview: A finance lease provides use of the equipment for a contractual term. The funder retains legal ownership; you make rental payments and usually have a purchase option at term-end for a residual sum.
Why choose a finance lease?
Overview: Renting equipment for a fixed period with the option to return, upgrade, or renew. The lessor typically takes residual risk and handles remarketing of the asset.
Why it suits optical practices:
Overview: Traditional secured or unsecured loans to buy equipment outright so you own from day one. Loans are flexible and often used where practices want to include installation, building works and integration costs in the financed amount.
When to choose a loan: If you prefer ownership, have a solid balance sheet or want to spread large one-off purchases across a managed schedule.
Overview: Sell owned equipment to a funder and lease it back, releasing capital while retaining operational use. Particularly useful for practices with significant assets tied up in equipment who need liquidity for expansion, acquisition or working capital.
Considerations: Immediate cash release, but lease commitments continue; evaluate tax and accounting consequences and aim for favourable rental terms.
Overview: For complex projects — multi-room fit-outs, multi-site rollouts, or combined equipment and property refurbishments — blended finance combines HP, operating leases, short-term loans and working capital facilities into a staged funding solution tied to project milestones.
Benefits: Matches funding to cash flow needs through build and commissioning phases, reduces the need for multiple lenders and simplifies drawdowns.
Overview: Repayments are linked to income streams (a percentage of card takings, subscription revenue or per-patient billing). Merchant finance can be ideal for start-ups, subscription-based services and practices with variable seasonality.
Why it helps: Smooths repayments during quieter months and scales automatically with revenues — useful for expanding clinics and pop-up/domiciliary services.
Overview: Overdrafts, invoice discounting or factoring help cover day-to-day costs, consumables, and immediate cash needs, especially where significant stock or multi-week payment cycles exist (e.g., supply to care homes or B2B arrangements).
We fund the full range of clinical and practice equipment used in optometry. Understanding the clinical role and cost profile of each item helps structure the right finance term and repayment plan.
Central to anterior segment examination. Modern slit-lamps may include digital imaging modules allowing stills and video capture. They are robust, medium-to-long-life assets often financed through HP or loans. Consider including imaging adaptors and integration with electronic patient records in the financed total.
Used for subjective refractive testing; motorised phoropters provide speed and accessibility. These are commonly financed on shorter terms (36–60 months) or via operating leases where modular software updates are expected.
Provide rapid objective refractive data and corneal curvature measurements. Often combined into all-in-one units; finance terms depend on complexity and integration with contact lens fitting systems.
Traditional, lower-cost items — usually purchased outright or included within a broader financing bundle for practice start-ups.
Essential dispensing tool for validating spectacle prescriptions; financeable as part of equipment bundles when setting up dispensing labs or same-day services.
Crucial for glaucoma screening. Goldmann applanation tonometers are clinical gold standard and typically part of a higher-value diagnostic suite. Finance with HP or lease alongside fundus imaging for glaucoma pathways.
Automated perimetry devices measure peripheral vision and are essential for glaucoma management. These are mid-to-high value assets, often financially classed with other diagnostic equipment and financed over 3–5 years.
High-resolution imaging enables diabetic eye screening, macular monitoring and medicolegal documentation. Portable or fixed units exist; fixed high-spec cameras are often financed via HP or blended packages with OCT.
High-value flagship diagnostic that supports advanced retinal and anterior segment analysis. OCT scanners typically command long finance terms (48–84 months) and often include maintenance SLAs in the financed package due to clinical criticality.
Used for specialist contact lens fitting and keratoconus screening. Finance often bundled with fitting equipment for practices expanding into contact lens speciality services.
High-volume practices and in-house labs may invest in edgers, drillers and edging tables. These capital purchases are often financed to spread cost across revenue generation.
Practice management systems, cloud EPRs and backup infrastructure are essential. Shorter lease terms for IT equipment are common to allow rapid refresh as software evolves and security standards change.
Optical practice investment is shaped by clinical, regulatory and consumer trends. Lenders and borrowers alike should be aware of these dynamics when structuring finance.
Rising prevalence of diabetes and age-related macular degeneration increases demand for retinal imaging and OCT diagnostics. Practices with robust diagnostic capability are better positioned to secure NHS pathways and private referrals — increasing revenue predictability and improving lender appetite.
Tele-optometry and asynchronous image sharing are growing. Investment in retinal cameras, cloud image storage and secure remote reporting platforms enables new service lines and increases patient reach. Financing can bundle hardware and software licences.
Demand for home visits and community clinics requires portable slit-lamps, handheld tonometers and mobile fundus cameras. Operating leases or small HP packages suit portable kit as they balance mobility with cost.
Local commissioning and shared care pathways (e.g., community glaucoma or diabetic screening) reward practices that can demonstrate capability and data integration. Stable contracts underpin stronger finance offers.
Imaging resolution, software analytics and AI-driven interpretation are evolving rapidly. Operating leases and shorter-term financing allow practices to remain clinically current without over-committing to long-life ownership of rapidly-evolving peripherals.
Green purchasing (energy-efficient equipment, end-of-life refurbishment programmes) is increasingly considered. Some lenders offer sustainability-linked or green finance terms where equipment reduces energy use or improves lifecycle impact.
Tax treatment influences optimal financing choices. You should always consult an accountant, but the following points are useful guidance:
If your practice is VAT registered you can usually reclaim VAT on equipment purchases. For leased equipment VAT is charged on rental payments and may be reclaimable proportionally depending on business use.
Owned equipment may qualify for capital allowances, including Annual Investment Allowance (AIA) up to the prevailing limit. This can accelerate tax relief on qualifying purchases and improve cashflow.
Accounting standards (IFRS/UK GAAP) have tightened lease recognition — many leases now appear on balance sheets. Discuss balance sheet impacts with your finance adviser and lender when selecting operating vs finance leases.
Preparing a comprehensive application speeds approvals and helps secure better terms. Lenders will typically request:
Background: A busy independent practice wanted to expand private diagnostic services and offer OCT for macular monitoring.
Solution: Gable Asset Finance arranged a blended package: HP for the OCT over 60 months, an equipment loan for the retinal camera and an operating lease for the practice IT. A maintenance SLA was included in the financed package.
Outcome: The practice increased private diagnostic revenue by 35% within 12 months and secured local referral work from GPs, improving cashflow and the ability to repay finance comfortably.
Background: A regional group planned five new branches with standardised refraction and dispensing setups.
Solution: Project finance with staged drawdowns: HP for core diagnostic bays, operating leases for IT and merchant finance for initial stock. Central procurement discounts were negotiated to reduce per-unit costs.
Outcome: Faster rollout, lower per-site set-up costs and consistent patient experience across branches.
Background: An optometrist grew a domiciliary service requiring portable slit-lamps, handheld tonometers and mobile fundus cameras.
Solution: Operating lease for portable kit to retain flexibility and low deposit, combined with a short-term working capital facility for marketing and outreach costs.
Outcome: The service scaled quickly, increasing revenue and enabling the purchase of a specialist vehicle within 12 months.
Yes. Lenders look at director experience, business plans and cashflow forecasts. Merchant finance, higher initial deposits or shorter-term leasing are common for start-ups. Gable Asset Finance helps present the strongest case to lenders.
Yes. Quality used equipment with service history and inspection certificates is financeable. Terms may be shorter and deposits higher due to residual value considerations.
Simple HP or equipment loan deals can complete within 5–15 business days once documentation is provided. Complex blended project finance or multi-site rollouts can take 4–8 weeks or longer, depending on due diligence and legal requirements.
Yes. Many lenders will finance installation, training and IT integration when invoiced by the supplier as part of a bundled package. Including these costs improves implementation cashflow and ensures vendor accountability.
Contact Gable Asset Finance with your equipment list, supplier quotes and recent accounts. We’ll provide a no-obligation assessment and recommended finance plan tailored to your optometry business.
Gable Asset Finance are able to arrange business finance and leasing on all Ophthalmic Capital Equipment. Located in the London with an national outreach, Gable Asset Finance have been arranging business finance and leasing optical equipment and furniture to opticians for many years and have become well known in the optical sector.
We are specialist suppliers of equipment for optometrists and ophthalmologists. Business finance and leasing on optical equipment such as:-
If you are considering leasing optical equipment to free up your capital, we will be pleased to get one of our business finance and leasing team to contact you