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Complaints to the Optical Consumer Complaints Service (OCCS) are growing and will continue to grow driven by factors such as the economic situation, changes to contact lens legislation and the ethnicity of optical staff.

OCCS chairman David Burt said complaints were accelerating and the situation was bound to get worse.

He said there were a few hot topics such as confusion around contact lens specifications, cataracts and adaptation to varifocals.However,other areas such as practices refusing to handover prescriptions and PD measurementsor do eye examinationswithout a dispensing and issues of ethnicity would add to the areas the profession needed to look at improving best practice.

'The public don't know we exist,'Burt admitted,but he said they foundthe OCCS pretty quick when a problem arose.He urged the profession to make their patients aware of the OCCS.

OCCS administrator Richard Wilshin assured the meeting that the service, which is funded by a GOC levy, was there for the protection of both practices and the public. The OCCS is independent and while some cases may be referred, such as in the case of competence issues, there is no systematic sharing of information.

The meeting also heard that the OCCS's role was purely mediation and it was up to the optical bodies and employers to teach their members and employees how to deal with the public in a way which will minimise complaints.

Most of the delegates agreed that common sense could avoid many complaints but more education and better communication within the profession was needed.

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