The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 992 implement an EC Directive and came into effect from January 1999 (some small changes were made in 2002). The Regulations apply where staff habitually use VDUs as a significant part of their normal work and who can ask their employer to provide and pay for an eye and eyesight test by an optometrist or doctor. There is also an entitlement to further tests at regular intervals; the optometrist doing the first test can recommend when the next should be. Employers only have to pay for spectacles if special ones (for example, prescribed for the distance at which the screen is viewed) are needed and normal ones cannot be used.
Other people, who use VDUs only occasionally, are not covered by the eye test requirements in the Regulations.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/faq.htm